Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 38135

1 Friday, 8 April 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.07 a.m.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Before the witness comes in, I

7 wanted to ask you to look into the following possibility: Since you

8 planned on working four days next week, including a Status Conference, I

9 was informed by the liaison officer that this Status Conference should go

10 on for about an hour and that it would have to deal with a use -- with the

11 use of time in general. However, that hour requires a great deal of

12 procedure in transporting me here and back, et cetera, so I wanted to ask

13 you if it would be possible to work one hour longer on one of the regular

14 working days, or to start one hour earlier before the regular proceedings,

15 so that I would not use hours and hours in order to get here to work for

16 one hour only on that fourth day.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, it's difficult to extend, because as you

18 know, the Limaj case is heard in this courtroom in the afternoon, and I'm

19 very reluctant to use the time of the trial for the purpose indicated. I

20 will consider it with my colleagues.

21 [Trial Chamber confers]

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we'll have to discuss it with the

23 court officers, and we'll let you know before the end of the day's

24 proceedings.

25 Let the witness be called.

Page 38136

1 [The witness entered court]

2 WITNESS: SLAVISA DOBRICANIN [Resumed]

3 [Witness answered through interpreter]

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Please continue, Mr. Milosevic.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

6 Examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

7 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Professor.

8 A. Good morning, Mr. Milosevic.

9 Q. Yesterday, you explained what you saw up in the area where you

10 were. It was my understanding that you went on foot throughout the area.

11 You didn't take a car. You actually walked, and you saw those trenches

12 and everything else you described.

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. On the way, you observed what you told us about yesterday, but did

15 you get any additional information?

16 A. Apart from what I said yesterday from the conversations with the

17 policemen present, I just learned of certain elements about the course of

18 that action that were of interest to me because they had to do with the

19 number of casualties, the number of persons killed or, rather, the

20 approximate number of persons killed, because no one could tell me at the

21 time how many people were killed in the fighting. So that was what I

22 observed.

23 In addition to that, I asked about the terrain itself. I asked

24 how come they managed to get in, because there were hills all around, and

25 at any point in time anybody could start shooting from there. That was

Page 38137

1 the only observation I had. And also, I asked them about what the wooden

2 tripod meant, things like that.

3 Q. After that, I assume that you went back to the centre of Racak, to

4 where your vehicles were with the intention of leaving.

5 A. After that, we went to the right from that particular spot when

6 facing the hill. We went by a facility that they told me was the village

7 waterworks of Racak. We walked downhill, taking the village path towards

8 the first houses in Racak. We were pretty high up before that. And then

9 when we got close to those houses, there was strong gunfire.

10 I noticed that those two orange vehicles belonging to the OSCE

11 monitors were nearby. At the moment when the shooting started, they

12 simply started their cars and went into the village. They simply got

13 lost, as far as we were concerned. I was expecting their presence to

14 prevent any kind of stronger gunfire or our killing, as a matter of fact.

15 However, they left us to our own devices.

16 With us were perhaps five or six policemen who did take their

17 weapons, but they didn't want to shoot. First of all, they didn't see

18 where the shooting was coming from; and secondly, they didn't want to

19 reveal where we were. We were hiding behind some baskets behind some

20 houses in a yard, rather undefined houses. They weren't proper

21 residential buildings.

22 At one point the gunfire stopped, and we used that opportunity to

23 get into our vehicle, the Lada Niva, and we went into the village itself

24 in order to get to the crossroads where the road to Stimlje was.

25 After that, there was shooting all over the village. I could not

Page 38138

1 tell where the firing was coming from because I was in this vehicle.

2 Certainly there was a bit of fear involved, too.

3 When we got out of the village, I can just tell you that at one

4 moment on this village path, on the right-hand side, next to a high wall

5 which is characteristic of Albanian villages, I saw those two vehicles

6 parked one after the other. I did not see anyone in the vehicles. They

7 stayed behind and we went along.

8 From the centre of village we turned left towards Stimlje, and

9 when we got into a clearing, we realised that there was heavy gunfire

10 coming from automatic rifles. I think that I heard the bullets whizzing

11 by the car. There was a lot of gunfire coming from a mortar. I realised

12 that because wherever we were going, there were geysers, so to speak,

13 coming out of the sandy terrain on both sides of the vehicle.

14 The driver of our vehicle was comforting us, saying that he'd get

15 us out. We were all a bit afraid. After all, that is only human.

16 At one moment, I saw that the back window was breaking and --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the answer has gone on for such a

18 long time that I've forgotten what the question was. I'd prefer, much

19 prefer, Professor, short answers.

20 You should ask another question now.

21 JUDGE KWON: And sorry to interrupt, but what day is it that we

22 are talking about? Is it the 16th?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, the 18th.

24 JUDGE KWON: The 18th.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Will you allow me just to say one

Page 38139

1 more sentence, Your Honours?

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic will ask another question, yes.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When we were hit, we went down off

4 the road on one side and then we arrived at the police station in Stimlje,

5 and this completed our work in Racak.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. You said that your vehicle had been hit.

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. But no one was wounded.

10 A. Thanks to the fact that we had bulletproof glass, and that's what

11 the projectile hit.

12 Q. When you arrived in Pristina, where did you go and where were the

13 bodies from Racak transported?

14 A. From Stimlje we went directly to the Institute for Forensic

15 Medicine because while we were at the police station in Stimlje we

16 realised via radio communications that the truck with the bodies from

17 Racak arrived in front of the institute. Indeed, we did find the truck

18 with bodies there, and there was also security detail around the truck.

19 Q. Where did you put up the bodies?

20 A. In the morgue of the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Pristina,

21 on the floor of a basement, which has a very cold floor. At the time, our

22 refrigerators were not operating.

23 Q. And who decided to set up this team of experts of the Institute of

24 Forensic Medicine?

25 A. Investigating Judge Danica Marinkovic.

Page 38140

1 Q. Did you suggest to Mrs. Marinkovic who should be on the team,

2 since this is an expert team?

3 A. Yes, I did make such a suggestion.

4 Q. And who were the members of this team of forensic experts?

5 A. The members of this team of experts were our top specialists for

6 forensic medicine and the top people of the Institutes for Forensic

7 Medicine from Novi Sad, Belgrade, Nis, and Pristina.

8 Q. How come experts from Belorussia were involved in the autopsy

9 activities?

10 A. They came because of the problems we had before that. Volujak,

11 Klecka, and Steska [phoen]. They were supposed to help with the autopsies

12 from there.

13 Q. How many experts were from Belorussia?

14 A. There were two forensic doctors and there was the deputy head of

15 their Centre for Forensic Medicine of Belorussia, and yet another person.

16 Q. All right. They came to investigate what happened earlier, and

17 they happened to be there. What was their role in terms of the autopsies

18 of the bodies from Racak?

19 A. They were observers only, with the right to attend post-mortems,

20 give suggestions, and perhaps even criticise what was done if something

21 was done wrong. They were highly engaged.

22 Q. When the other members of the Yugoslav team came, you said that

23 there were experts from Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, that is to say experts

24 who did not happen to be in Pristina then. When did they actually arrive?

25 A. The night between the 18th and the 19th of January in the very

Page 38141

1 early morning hours.

2 Q. Who told them what the assignment was?

3 A. In my office at the Institute for Forensic Medicine, investigating

4 judge Mrs. Danica Marinkovic told us what our assignment was and told us

5 what we were supposed to do.

6 Q. Who headed this forensic team?

7 A. Informally I headed the team. Nobody was really appointed to head

8 the team, because I was director of the Forensic Medicine Institute in

9 Pristina and that's where everything was happening so it was only logical

10 for me to be the head of that team, and also I was the chief of logistics

11 so that these proceedings would evolve properly.

12 Q. When did you start the autopsies?

13 A. On the 19th of January, 1999.

14 Q. So that means the following day?

15 A. Yes, that means the following day.

16 Q. Before working on the autopsies, did you have any contact with

17 people from the OSCE? Did anyone from there contact you?

18 A. Yes. Mr. Pederson, who reacted very violently to the fact that we

19 were starting our autopsies, stating that we had to wait for the team from

20 Finland, and they were supposed to come, but only within the next few

21 days. I informed Mrs. Danica Marinkovic about this. She consulted

22 somebody else, I don't know who. At one moment Mr. Jankovic, who was then

23 minister of justice called me, and asked whether this could be postponed

24 and I told him the degree of decay was so high already that any further

25 postponement would further hinder our findings in a major way, so we

Page 38142

1 proceeded with the autopsies. We rejected what Mr. Pederson said, and we

2 agreed to start working.

3 Q. All right. That means that the Ministry of Justice from Belgrade

4 intervened that you should start [as interpreted] this, and you gave

5 professional reasons why there should not be a postponement. Did I

6 understand you correctly?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Did you tell Pederson what the possibilities were for waiting for

9 an autopsy and what could happen then?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Where was the Finnish team when they talked to you?

12 A. The Finnish team was in Helsinki.

13 Q. And did Judge Marinkovic contact the authorities and ask them for

14 their opinions as to how to proceed with respect to Pederson's request?

15 A. No. Apart from what I've just told you, that Mr. Jankovic called

16 me and I conveyed what he told me to Mrs. Marinkovic.

17 Q. And how -- what was Pederson's reactions to the decision that the

18 autopsy should go ahead straight away?

19 A. He was extremely angry. He left the building. But when we

20 started the autopsies he nonetheless did attend.

21 Q. What is his profession?

22 A. Well, I assume he's a lawyer, because after the armed conflict in

23 Kosovo and our withdrawal he became the head of the legal department of

24 the UNMIK administration, I believe.

25 Q. And when did the Finnish experts arrive? When did they join you

Page 38143

1 in your work?

2 A. On the 22nd of January, 1999.

3 Q. How many autopsies did you get through before the Finnish team

4 arrived?

5 A. Sixteen.

6 Q. And who made up the Finnish team?

7 A. The Finnish team was made up of Professor Dr. Antti Penttila,

8 Kaisa Lalu, Juha Rainio I think the other man's name was. He was a crime

9 technician, scene of crime officer, photographer, and so on. And at the

10 head of the Finnish team was Mrs. Helena Ranta, who was a forensic

11 dentist.

12 Q. All right. Professor, you explained to us a moment ago that the

13 Finnish team and experts were in Finland when their presence was

14 requested. I'm not challenging that at all, of course, but I would like

15 you to explain this executive summary that we have in tab 1 from which we

16 can see that the Finnish experts --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

18 MR. NICE: Before we start going through the exhibits and in light

19 of an earlier discussion, I should tell the Court that I think none of

20 these exhibits was listed in the 55 -- in the exhibit list of the accused.

21 We first received the documents half translated, half not translated 6.30

22 p.m. the night before last.

23 Now, I'm not going to take technical objection and seek to exclude

24 all the exhibits for reasons I gave on an earlier occasion and because

25 even if I were to succeed in excluding them now, the Court would probably

Page 38144

1 simply postpone cross-examination and then we have a build-up of

2 cross-examination with witnesses to return, and it's terribly

3 inconvenient. But I would ask the Court to have in mind the difficulties

4 again which have been created by the non-compliance of the accused with

5 the very clear orders of the Court, to have those difficulties in mind

6 when particular admissibility questions arise.

7 Mr. Saxon's going to be dealing with this witness so I will let

8 him deal with all other administrative matters, but I think I can forecast

9 that within the documents which you're going to be invited to admit there

10 may be questions of expertise arising. The witness is, I think, here as a

11 fact witness with no expert report having been served in advance, and this

12 may be a general topic that you'll want to have in mind, bearing in mind,

13 of course, that somebody like Helena Ranta, called by the Court, was

14 nevertheless clearly an expert.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, what is the explanation for this

16 very sloppy management of your case? None of these exhibits was disclosed

17 in the 65 ter material.

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone for the accused,

19 please.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, I have had very

21 little time to collect the exhibits and everything else. Under the

22 conditions I work, I am not able to foresee everything in advance, because

23 parallel with the preparations, I have to collect the relevant documents.

24 As far as translation is concerned, most of these exhibits are already in

25 English, as far as I can see. At least the ones at the beginning. Of

Page 38145

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Page 38146

1 course later on, we have the other documents in Serbian, but they have

2 also been translated, I believe, as far as I've been informed. So I don't

3 see any obstacle to reviewing them and tendering them.

4 And as far as the comment that Professor Dobricanin is a fact

5 witness, yes, he is a fact witness, but it is also a fact that he himself

6 was the head of the team who conducted the autopsies, so that his

7 testimony here about the facts cannot be separated from the subject of his

8 work, and it was indeed the subject of his work that was also a fact, and

9 we have documents to bear that out here.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: But if he's going to give expert evidence, then

11 you're required to serve a notice. How many of the documents are

12 untranslated?

13 MR. KAY: Can I just mention --

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

15 MR. KAY: -- some of these documents are, of course, within the

16 Prosecution exhibits already. A large number of them are from the

17 Prosecution files anyway, and I doubt very much whether the Prosecutor

18 doesn't have a single piece of paper here already.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: I wanted to ask, Mr. Nice: Are you saying you've

20 not had prior access to the work of the forensic team involved here?

21 MR. NICE: I'm not saying that. What I am saying is we were given

22 no notice by being on the accused's list that this was material we were

23 going to have to deal with it. We certainly haven't had an expert report.

24 The Defence typically identifies exhibits when they provide them

25 to us that are on their 65 ter exhibit list, and none has been identified

Page 38147

1 on this occasion and we haven't been able to connect any one with the

2 other.

3 So, I mean, our problem, it's real problem, we are very much

4 subject to finite resources, which we have to deploy to the best -- in the

5 best way we can, and if we aren't given notice in advance that something's

6 going to be relied on, we simply don't turn to it, whether we've got it or

7 not.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: These no doubt all will be revealed as the evidence

9 progresses, but the tabs do seem to jump around a little from subject to

10 subject, and it does look like the sort of evidence that would have been

11 very helpfully presented in the form of a written report for everyone's

12 benefit, including in particular the benefit of the accused.

13 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I couldn't agree more, and indeed from the

14 beginning have been inviting the accused through the Court to make use of

15 provisions of 89(F) or otherwise to present material in written form,

16 whether expert, quasi-expert, or fact evidence, in order that he might

17 maximise the amount of evidence he can put in in the time that's been

18 allocated to him, but he's declined all that. And I can simply reinforce

19 the Prosecution's enthusiastic adoption of Your Honour -- His Honour Judge

20 Bonomy's words.

21 I think tab 12, as an example, is something where we may find

22 expertise being relied upon. But, Your Honours, I don't want to take any

23 more time. We've put up with the inefficiencies or incompetence of the

24 Defence presentation of its case, drawing to your attention the

25 shortcomings and the difficulties it creates for us, but not seeking to

Page 38148

1 take technical points in, as I explained yesterday, an overall philosophy

2 of hoping that the accused can get before you what he wants to get before

3 you if it's relevant. We can take no other position now.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yet another example of not

5 managing the case properly. We take into account that the Prosecution

6 would have had in its possession many of these exhibits, and for that

7 reason we'll allow you to proceed, but we'll take a decision on the tabs

8 individually.

9 So you are referring to tab -- tab 1, an executive summary.

10 Proceed.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. I wanted you, Professor, to explain to us, since you explain the

14 team was in Finland when the decision was made to invite the team to

15 arrive, which meant that the team came later -- actually, when did the

16 team arrive, several days later?

17 A. The 22nd.

18 Q. I see. The 22nd. So you started on 19th, they arrived on the

19 22nd, that is to say three days later was when the Finnish team arrived.

20 Now, from this document in tab 1 we can see that the Finnish team were

21 present in Kosovo -- that the Finns were present in Kosovo for 1998; is

22 that right?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Now, how was it that they were present to do with your

25 professional job, that kind of thing?

Page 38149

1 A. They came in 1998 immediately after the bodily remains or, rather,

2 bones were found in the Klecka location. Probably their assignment and

3 task was, of course in cooperation with our state organs, was to assist us

4 in the identification process. However, apart from that, they started

5 visiting the general area of Kosovo and Metohija, going to some sites and

6 locations which didn't mean anything to me at the time. I didn't know

7 about them. They went to Glodjani, for example, where 40 bodies were

8 found in a lake and in the lake estuaries, and they went to the village of

9 Drenica, what I didn't know about. They visited Gornje Obrinje, for

10 example, another location. And in Gornje Obrinje, what was interesting

11 was the story there that, without anybody's knowledge, any of the state

12 organs knowing about it, they went to visit a site where allegedly some

13 bodies had been found of dead Albanians.

14 I have to tell you just in a few sentences to explain that, in

15 agreement with Mrs. Helena Ranta and the investigating judge

16 Mrs. Marinkovic, on the 9th of December we did go to the village of

17 Obrinje to attend the exhumation of the bodies found in that location

18 together. When we arrived, we were provided with good security. Drenica

19 is a very difficult area, dangerous area.

20 Q. I apologise for interrupting you, Professor, but on page 4 of the

21 11 pages of this document, of the tab, it says in the last paragraph: "On

22 the 9th of December, 1998, after the district court of Pristina had issued

23 a court order for exhumation, preparations at the site were under way."

24 Is that what you're referring to?

25 A. Yes, that is what I'm referring to.

Page 38150

1 Q. Well, would you go on and explain what this was all about. But I

2 do apologise, before you do so, you mentioned the fact that they had

3 arrived to see some bodies, dead bodies in a lake. What do you know about

4 that? Who was that?

5 A. They were individuals who were kidnapped and killed in 1998,

6 perhaps even 1997. They were in a state of decomposition, of decay, on

7 the Glodjani area, Decani area, that generally region, and some other

8 villages in that area, and the members of the KLA had kidnapped these

9 people, killed them, and thrown them into the lake, Radonjic Lake. And a

10 people from the Belgrade Forensic Institute came pursuant to orders by the

11 district court in Pec. They examined the bodies and established the

12 identities, I think, of about 20 corpses. 20 corpses remained

13 unidentified and they were buried at the Piskote cemetery near Djakovica.

14 The year before last we exhumed those bodies again, and prior to that the

15 court or, rather, the prosecutor's office and the investigating services

16 had also conducted an exhumation with the object of determining the

17 identities of those bodies. In recent months we are getting in

18 information about the identity of those dead bodies.

19 I should like to return, if I may --

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: This is an entirely different incident.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am asking questions with respect

22 to the role of the Finnish team who was engaged in this incident that

23 we're discussing -- well, in Racak. So the team had also been involved

24 since 1998 on matters of this kind in the area of Kosovo and Metohija, and

25 I would -- just wanted to hear from the professor whether there was any

Page 38151

1 characteristic traits with respect to the team's work and involvement

2 during that time, as a witness, of course, who was an eyewitness and was

3 on the spot at the time.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Deal with it very briefly and get back to Racak.

5 Before you do that, I wanted to ask Mr. Nice just to remind me of

6 the Prosecution evidence in relation to Racak. The incident took place on

7 the 15th, and you adduced evidence as to the removal of the bodies?

8 MR. NICE: Whether we adduced evidence specifically as to the

9 removal of the bodies, we adduced evidence as to the photographs -- by

10 photographs of the position of the bodies on the day itself when they were

11 first seen in the gully, and also, as you will remember, in the other 12

12 of the total 13 different sites, and then we dealt with the evidence of

13 them being in the mosque.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: How did they get to the mosque? Was there any

15 evidence as to that?

16 MR. NICE: I'm not sure there was any evidence directly dealing

17 with the movement, but I'll check into that and come back to Your Honour.

18 I think the connection may have been inferential but I'll deal with it

19 immediately.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: To that before the professor came on the scene,

21 and Mrs. Marinkovic, the bodies had been around for two, three days.

22 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The professor was very specific; he

24 said that they saw the bodies for the first time on the 18th in the

25 mosque. That emerges from what he said here.

Page 38152

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Now, Professor, would you just indicate, please, any

3 characteristic traits, anything that you consider to be characteristic

4 from this summary, tab 1, of the Finnish expert team. You mentioned the

5 event that took place in 1998.

6 A. Yes. I'll explain in a few sentences. We started out to the

7 village of Obrinje for an exhumation, together with the Finnish team.

8 Now, for you to be able to assess the atmosphere that prevailed and

9 everything that took place, I'll tell you this: In addition to the expert

10 teams, the Finnish team, we also had the ambassador, the Finnish

11 ambassador to Yugoslavia with his wife; the minister for human rights in

12 Finland, Mr. Kima Lahelma [phoen]; the first secretary or maybe second

13 secretary of the German embassy in Belgrade, Mr. Ottmann [phoen]; and

14 several other individuals whom I did not know and who, in my professional

15 opinion, had no place to be there, to attend an exhumation of these

16 bodies. And they never -- never in my career did people like that who

17 were not professionals were following an order by the district court for

18 exhumation, they never attended exhumations.

19 At one point we stopped on the road. There was an empty space on

20 all sides although you could see some houses on the hill. There was deep

21 snow. And we noticed that from both sides people were running up in --

22 wearing black clothes - you could see that - it was about 250 metres away,

23 who had took up their positions on both sides of this space. I don't

24 know --

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: You tell us why you said in your opinion these

Page 38153

1 members -- some members of the Finnish team had no business being at an

2 exhumation of the bodies. What was it that disqualified them?

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour Judge Robinson, what

4 disqualified them was that they were -- that the investigating judge did

5 not issue an order for them to be present, to enable their presence and

6 attend the exhumation. And secondly, nowhere in the world when an

7 exhumation is being conducted outside cemeteries do you have the presence

8 of the ambassadors of some countries, which have no role there. They have

9 not been assigned to be there.

10 I'm sure that there was another problem or, rather, had it not --

11 I'm sure that had it been another type of judge, that you wouldn't have

12 seen the wife of a ambassador.

13 So we were an exhumation team. We weren't going on a picnic. It

14 wasn't an excursion. That's one thing.

15 Now, may I explain what happened after that? I'll be very short.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When we saw that members of the KLA

18 were running up, policemen around us received information through the

19 radio that they were getting ready to liquidate us, and we told the

20 Finnish team that we should get back. And after three hours of argument,

21 we indeed went back.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Thank you, Professor. What was the role of Helena Ranta on the

24 Finnish team, and what were the roles of the other members of the team?

25 A. Helena Ranta was the official head of the team of the EU-FET, the

Page 38154

1 European Union Finnish Expert Team. She is a dental -- dentist, a dental

2 expert, an odontologist, in fact, and other members of the team were

3 forensic pathologists. People from the international list of top

4 pathologists, especially one of them who is my good friend Mr. Antti

5 Penttila. Mrs. Ranta, among that group, would hardly be the best possible

6 choice for the head of the team, but that is a matter of politics.

7 Q. How did you cooperate with the Finnish --

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Just going back to the incident you were dealing

9 with earlier, what was the date of that incident, Doctor?

10 A. The 9th of December, 1998.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Please, I have a -- I have a remark.

13 It is not Antti Penttila, the name of the Finnish expert, but Antti

14 Penttila.

15 Could you please repeat the question, Mr. Milosevic.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. I asked if you and Judge Marinkovic had earlier contacts with the

18 European experts.

19 A. Yes, we did, until that incident, which was embarrassing, but it

20 was not due to us but some other factors probably. The cooperation we had

21 with all the professors and experts that -- who came from Finland was very

22 good and very correct.

23 Q. Let us continue. On that day, on the 22nd, they arrived. You

24 said a moment ago that until then you and your colleagues had already

25 performed the post-mortem on 16 bodies. What was done in order to

Page 38155

1 familiarise the Finnish experts with the already completed 16 autopsies?

2 A. That is correct. We had already performed 16 post-mortems. When

3 the Finns arrived, we continued to work, together with them, in mixed

4 teams wherein the Finnish expert would perform a post-mortem, whereas two

5 of our people would assist. On another two bodies, for instance, our

6 expert would perform the autopsy while the Finns would be assisting,

7 giving their suggestions, indicating directions of examination. It was a

8 complete full professional cooperation. We acted as one single team in

9 every single post-mortem.

10 When the work was done on the 28th of January, all those bodies

11 that we did together from 17 to 40, we returned to the 16 bodies that we

12 had autopsied alone.

13 Q. Professor, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Since we have come back to

14 the 16 bodies you autopsied before they came, did the Finns agree with

15 your findings on those post-mortems?

16 A. Please let me continue what I was saying. We put all of those 16

17 bodies back on the table and practically repeated the autopsy on every of

18 these 16 bodies. The professor from our team who had performed the

19 autopsy would show his drawings, his sketches, his findings, everything

20 that they wanted to see, and each of the findings was harmonised on the

21 spot. And once this harmonisation of findings was completed, we would

22 bring another two bodies, and that is how we practically re-autopsied all

23 the 16 bodies. Not then and not later did they have any objections to our

24 method of work.

25 Q. When you speak of your method of work, what was the division of

Page 38156

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Page 38157

1 labour among you? Could it be said that you worked as a unified single

2 team or did you do a separate job each?

3 A. We worked as a united team, a mixed team according to the

4 agreement we had previously reached at the Institute of Forensic Medicine

5 because we thought it was the most expedient way of having the work done.

6 Q. Could you clarify one more thing on this issue: Does that mean

7 that every member of both the Yugoslav and the European team, Finnish

8 team, was familiar with every finding of every autopsy? Did the

9 Belorussians, too, in their capacity as observers, have insight into all

10 the autopsies?

11 A. Absolutely correct.

12 Q. Did the Belorussian experts as observers put their signatures on

13 the findings of all the 40 autopsies?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. On every individual post-mortem finding and on the collective

16 summary?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Did the Finns sign the post-mortem findings?

19 A. No, they did not, although it had been agreed that they would, and

20 their names were even typed up at the bottom of the page. However, they

21 said when the moment came that they couldn't sign because some additional

22 analyses were necessary.

23 Q. Why didn't they sign?

24 A. I cannot tell you that. They were probably prevented from

25 signing.

Page 38158

1 Q. When you say "prevented," what do you mean?

2 A. When we agreed they would sign, they were withdrawn from my

3 office --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Saxon.

5 MR. SAXON: The witness has already answered the question, saying

6 "I cannot tell you that." The question was, Why didn't you sign? So it

7 seems rather unfruitful to have him continuing to speculate as to how

8 their signatures appeared on this document or did not.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And Mr. Milosevic, I note in any event he

10 has said that they said when the moment came that they couldn't sign

11 because many additional analyses were necessary. So we do have the

12 witness giving an explanation from the Finns themselves as to why they

13 didn't sign.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Robinson. I'll ask a

15 different question.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Did the Finnish experts perform -- correction, compile their own

18 written findings?

19 A. Yes. We received them on the 13th of March, 1999.

20 Q. Professor, look at tab 2. Is this the finding of the EU-FET, the

21 Finnish Expert Team?

22 A. Yes. There were 40 of such reports, each one accompanied by a

23 videotape. This first report, if you allow me, refers to the first body,

24 we called Racak 1, and this number RA-17033EF is proof that it was also

25 examined by the Finnish team.

Page 38159

1 Q. So this is an answer to my question. This is report number 1.

2 And in this tab we see a complete written report of the Finnish team,

3 complete with photographs, expert analysis, et cetera. As a professional,

4 tell us, is this the kind of complete report that is normally done in such

5 a procedure?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Now, tell me, did the conclusions of our experts coincide with

8 those of the Finnish experts on all the 40 bodies?

9 A. Absolutely. There are no important differences.

10 Q. After the completion of each autopsy, did both Yugoslav and

11 Finnish doctors who participated in the post-mortems compare notes, so to

12 speak, and compare their analyses?

13 A. We did. We compared our drawings, sketches and analyses, and you

14 have here one of the drawings done by Dr. Otasevic, and his drawing was

15 attached to the Finnish report. You can find it on one of the pages

16 behind the text.

17 Q. Yes, we can see this drawing behind the text.

18 A. It is written in longhand. Those are our working notes.

19 Q. So you explained a moment ago that after the completion of each

20 autopsy, both Finnish and Yugoslav doctors compared their findings. I

21 would like to ask you now, did on that occasion both Finnish and Yugoslav

22 doctors who were involved in the autopsies establish whether each

23 particular detail was contained in both the Yugoslav and the Finnish

24 report?

25 A. Yes, in every single case.

Page 38160

1 Q. Did either Yugoslav or Finnish doctors abandon any of the bodies

2 without having completely harmonised their findings?

3 A. No, never.

4 Q. Did Finnish experts perhaps write later about their work in Racak?

5 A. Yes, they published two expert articles. One was published in the

6 Forensic Science International, Volume 16, of the 15th of February, 2001,

7 signed Juha Rainio, Professor Penttila, and pathologist Kaisa Lalu, all

8 three being members of the team who worked in Racak village.

9 Q. Is that article in the Forensic Science International under tab 3?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. This is an article written by the Finns; right?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. In the last paragraph on page 2, it says: "Forensic

14 investigators from Yugoslavia, Finland, and Belorussia took part in the

15 examination performed in Racak." And then it says that they worked under

16 the pressure of extreme international media -- media pressure and

17 publicity, and then it goes on to say the same thing you explained. The

18 findings were discussed in the spirit of genuine international agreement.

19 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Milosevic is reading without having given a

20 reference from where he's reading so it's very difficult to find.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: The interpreters are having a problem.

22 Mr. Milosevic, the interpreters are having a problem. What are you

23 reading from?

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am reading from tab 3, from this

25 article which was mentioned just a moment ago by Professor Dobricanin.

Page 38161

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, you must ensure you have it before us

2 before you read. Have in mind the interpreters.

3 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, if I can be of further assistance. At

4 least in the English translation there are what appear to be paragraph

5 numbers and subnumbers. So if the accused could simply tell us what

6 paragraph number he's reading from.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much, Mr. Saxon.

8 Identify the paragraphs.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is the last paragraph of this

10 article which I have on only two pages. It was written, as Professor

11 Dobricanin just said, by Drs. Rainio, Lalu, and A. Penttila from the

12 University in Helsinki.

13 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note the interpreters have a

14 much longer article and the passage being read is not on page 2.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. I wish to establish one thing, Professor. In the middle of this

17 paragraph it says: "In both groups final conclusions --"

18 JUDGE KWON: I can't locate the passage you are reading from, so

19 could you help us to find out the passage from English version.

20 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note it is -- we found it. It's on

21 page 8, in the middle of the first largest paragraph.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Page 8 in the middle. All of this should have

23 been done by you, Mr. Milosevic. Not only as a courtesy but as a function

24 of effective management of the case.

25 THE INTERPRETER: It is the tenth -- tenth line from the bottom of

Page 38162

1 this first large paragraph. "In both groups..." is the beginning of the

2 sentence.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I will ask Mr. Dobricanin to help me

4 find this, because in the Serbian version I have only two pages in the

5 translation into Serbian that I received, and this is indeed a much longer

6 text.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Milosevic, here, it's on page 8.

8 Pages 7 and 8.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It says: "The autopsy findings were

10 discussed in full professional consensus." That is what I quoted a moment

11 ago in Serbian.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, we have found it now. I think we have found

13 it, yes.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Finally.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. It says: "In both groups, the final conclusions were equally

17 strong. When the number of victims is large and similar injuries are

18 sustained, the significance of separate injuries is not always as great as

19 it is in the investigation of homicide, suicide, or accident in a single

20 case. More important is the entirety. Therefore, some of the victims can

21 be investigated in less detail following a thorough investigation of some

22 of the others. Subsequent to the investigation, Yugoslav authorities have

23 informed the media that no grounds exist for bringing charges against any

24 Serbian police regarding the Racak incident. The International Criminal

25 Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, however, has charged five Yugoslav

Page 38163

1 officials, including the president of the FRY, with crimes against

2 humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. The first of the

3 seven charges is based upon events at Racak."

4 So, Professor, here in this article the Finns confirm that

5 findings were equally strong and identical with those of the Yugoslav

6 experts.

7 A. Yes, that is correct. And earlier in my testimony today I have

8 spoken about this. There were absolutely no differences. And the best

9 document confirming this is this article published by the Finns.

10 Q. Professor, let's just have a look at tab 3.1. It's only presented

11 in English. "Forensic investigation in Kosovo, Experiences of the

12 European Union Forensic Expert Team." Then it says Rainio, Karkola, Lalu,

13 Ranta, Takamaa, Penttila.

14 Now I'd like to draw your attention to page 220, just a passage

15 here. "[In English] At the conclusions on the autopsy findings concerning

16 injuries and cause of death were discussed by the Yugoslavian, Belorussian

17 and Finnish specialists. This was done in full professional consensus,

18 and there was no disagreement on these issues. The working atmosphere in

19 Pristina between the EU-FET and Yugoslavian and Belorussian forensic

20 experts was professional, friendly and fruitful."

21 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note that it's in the middle of

22 first the column on the left-hand side.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. Now I'd like to take you back to what I quoted to you from a

25 paragraph in the indictment that has to do with Racak where -- and the

Page 38164

1 Finnish experts here refer to it as well. Everything contained in this

2 paragraph. Let me just have a look. Do I have it here now? Do I have it

3 here with me?

4 MR. KAY: While we're looking, can we make tabs 1, 2, 3 and 3.1

5 exhibits?

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes, they may be exhibited.

7 THE REGISTRAR: The binder will be marked as D293.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: D292 -- 293? Yes.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Professor Dobricanin, it says here, I have to quote it to you once

11 again, not to go back to the date. It says here: "The FRY and Serbian

12 forces attacked the village of Racak after the shelling. Later the same

13 morning the village was entered by the forces of the FRY and Serbia and

14 they began conducting house-to-house searches. Villagers who attempted to

15 flee from the forces of the FRY and Serbia were shot throughout the

16 village. A group of approximately 25 men attempted to hide in a building

17 but were discovered by the forces of the FRY and Serbia. They were beaten

18 and then they were removed to a nearby hill where they were shot and

19 killed."

20 Now, could any of your findings have indicated such an incident,

21 the execution of people in Racak, shooting and killing them?

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Saxon.

23 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, the Prosecution does not understand how

24 this witness can testify to the events of the 15th of January when he has

25 said he was not in the village at that time.

Page 38165

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I am asking the

2 witness in view of the autopsy findings, and we established that they

3 fully match. Both the Yugoslav and the Finnish experts are in full

4 agreement, as the documents show, on the results of the autopsy. So could

5 forensic expertise lead to any conclusion that these persons were shot and

6 killed?

7 MR. SAXON: I must lodge another objection, Your Honour, that we

8 have been told that this is a fact witness, not an expert witness, and if

9 he's going to be called as an expert witness, we'd like the Rule 94 bis to

10 be followed.

11 [Trial Chamber confers]

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the Chamber rules that the

13 question is far too sweeping and generalised and it should be much more

14 specific. You can, for instance, ask the witness whether from his

15 findings he can speak to the cause of death of these persons, but simply

16 to read out paragraph A -- subparagraph A of paragraph 66 of the

17 indictment and ask the very general question that you did I think is --

18 will not be helpful to the Chamber.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. Professor, since you personally took part in this, since you

22 personally worked on this, can you testify as to the cause of death of

23 these persons?

24 A. Yes, I can. The cause of death of those persons whose autopsies I

25 performed and also for those persons whose autopsies were conducted by my

Page 38166

1 Finnish colleagues, because I took active part in all the autopsies.

2 Q. On the basis of the facts established, on the basis of

3 professional work that was invested in order to come up with these facts,

4 can the assertion be claimed -- be supported or rejected that these

5 persons were shot and killed?

6 A. We and our colleagues from the Finnish team wrote that there were

7 no signs of shooting and killing, rather, of execution, because the

8 distribution of the wounds, the pattern of the wounds and the -- and the

9 channels where the bullets went through look quite different when compared

10 to what happens during a different type of military activity.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Can we establish, please, first of all, the source

12 -- a source document that will show us that the Finnish team wrote that

13 there were no signs of execution, which is what you've said. Once we get

14 that, we can then look more broadly, but you're making very general

15 statements now that sound to me like expertise. So can you draw my

16 attention to a document which -- in which you both say there are no signs

17 of execution?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I'm a witness in this

19 case who is partly an expert witness, I believe, because what I saw as an

20 expert --

21 JUDGE BONOMY: You're not here as an expert witness, and you've

22 just written -- you've just said that the Finnish team wrote that there

23 were no signs of execution. Now, I would like to see that document.

24 Before you go on to another subject or justify something else you want to

25 say, tell me where I find that document.

Page 38167

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Page 38168

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I saw that somewhere in their

2 documents. I cannot recall exactly, but I know that I came across that,

3 that there were no signs of execution. And we agreed to that. It's been

4 six years now. I really don't know. I've read a great many things. I

5 did not prepare for all of this.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Have you not -- have you not written an expert

7 report about this?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. A report was compiled which

9 will be shown later during this testimony. I hope that the time for that

10 will come.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I hope so too.

12 Mr. Robinson, I have to say that this type of objection like the

13 one just raised by Mr. Saxon is something I don't understand at all.

14 Professor Dobricanin is indeed a fact witness, but it is a fact that he

15 gained the experience that he's testifying about as an expert in forensic

16 medicine. So it is absolutely impossible to separate statements that Mr.

17 Saxon calls expert statements - and that is no doubt true - from factual

18 statements, because the fact witness is a person who was directly in

19 charge of the autopsies that he also conducted. So all the facts in

20 relation to his work are supported by written documents about what he and

21 his colleagues did at the time.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you may be straining the Rule, but

23 continue. All of this could have about avoided had you produced an expert

24 report.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I want to express my reservations at this

Page 38169

1 stage about this witness being asked questions which will require the

2 application of expertise in the absence of the Prosecution be given notice

3 in the appropriate form of a report of conclusions that he might have

4 drawn. There's no question here but that the evidence could be led in the

5 proper way if the Rules were followed, and the question is whether the

6 Prosecution are prejudiced by a failure to apply the Rules.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Proceed, Mr. Milosevic, and we'll make our

8 determination as we go along.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I hope, Mr. Robinson, that the

10 establishment of the truth does not work to anyone's detriment but rather

11 to everyone's benefit.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Professor Dobricanin, in these articles that we saw in tabs 2 and

14 3, did the Finnish experts present their conclusions, stating that their

15 findings coincide with those of the Yugoslav team?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Let us move on to specific questions now. You examined all the

18 bodies. What was the gender of the bodies?

19 A. They were men for the most part. There was only one woman among

20 them.

21 Q. Tell me, what was examined on these bodies?

22 A. When we started the autopsies at the Institute for Forensic

23 Medicine, we took the customary forensic medicine procedure. Excuse me.

24 First of all, the clothes and footwear were taken off the bodies.

25 That was examined in detail. All the parts of clothing were described and

Page 38170

1 given numbers, and then also there were tears in the clothing due to

2 shots. All of this was dealt with with the crime technicians of the

3 provincial SUP in Pristina, then the OSCE monitors, Mr. Pederson and

4 another person whose name I don't remember, and later on from number 17,

5 autopsy number 17, the members of the assistant expert team of the Finnish

6 team was recording everything, too, and then the autopsies were proceeded

7 with.

8 Q. Professor, how were the clothes examined, the clothes that they

9 wore?

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you -- before you answer that, I now do not

11 understand what's happening here. What's been established so far is that

12 the conclusions that the witness reached were exactly the same conclusions

13 as the Finnish team. The Court already knows these conclusions. So what

14 is the next question? There's no point in going over them all again since

15 we have the material. So what is the next point that has to be asked of

16 the witness?

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I wanted to ask him about the

18 clothing. In tab 4, we have a list, a short list, as an example of how

19 what they wore was described, and I'm going to ask the witness about that,

20 what kind of conclusion can be drawn on the basis of the fact that those

21 bodies had several layers of clothing on them.

22 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, just for the record, I make the same

23 objection that I made before.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Which was what?

25 MR. SAXON: That if these are conclusions based on his expertise

Page 38171

1 as a forensic scientist, then Rule 94 bis should have been followed.

2 MR. KAY: We have photographs of the clothing.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: I don't think any question arises about this,

4 Mr. Saxon. It's factual.

5 Do we have a translation of this? Okay.

6 Yes, proceed, Mr. Milosevic.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Professor, I asked you what conclusion can be drawn from the fact

9 that these bodies, without exception, had several layers of clothing on

10 them, under parts -- or different upper parts and lower parts, tracksuits,

11 jumpers and so on.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute. Just a minute.

13 [Trial Chamber confers]

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Saxon, the question does ask for a conclusion

15 which, in my opinion, is an expert conclusion because I suspect that the

16 answer will inevitably be based on experience in the past and not just on

17 the specific facts of the present investigation. What I'd like to know

18 is, since it's important evidence and it's evidence that it would really

19 not be possible to take exception to if the Rules had been followed in the

20 correct way, is how you see yourself as being prejudiced, if at all, if

21 the evidence is allowed in today rather than, by the application of

22 technicality, delayed for some time.

23 MR. SAXON: Yes, Your Honour. Let me try to explain. The

24 Prosecution feels it would be prejudiced because central to the accused's

25 individual criminal responsibility for the deaths at Racak is the nature

Page 38172

1 of the victims. And when I refer to the nature, I refer to whether they

2 were civilians or persons who, for whatever reasons, had laid down their

3 arms and were no longer participating in combat, or whether they were KLA

4 soldiers. And my concern is that the question as it was posed by the

5 accused to this witness is bringing us then very close to this very

6 fundamental question.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: We may not in any event allow him to comment on

8 that. Even if he's an expert, it doesn't appear to me that the expertise

9 would allow him to say whether they were soldiers or KLA.

10 MR. SAXON: Well --

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay.

12 MR. KAY: In many respects I appreciate the Court is placed in a

13 difficult dilemma with a witness such as this who was using an expertise

14 at the time that he was involved with this particular area of evidence but

15 has been called as a witness of fact.

16 To be frank, the Prosecution are aware of all this material. It's

17 in their archives. They've got masses of it. They have -- they have

18 access to all this material, and they don't really need to be put on

19 notice about it. That is being unduly technical, and they have a number

20 of expert advisors who use their expertise to assist them in the

21 questioning of a witness such as this.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: But, Mr. Kay, where does -- I understand that point

23 entirely and I hope you understood that my question to Mr. Saxon was

24 framed on the basis of that understanding, but where does the sloppiness

25 end? How do we keep some sort of orderly control over the process that we

Page 38173

1 have ultimately to engage in in reaching a rational judgement in this

2 case? And we want to do that on the basis of the best possible

3 presentation of the evidence and that is not happening in the conduct of

4 Mr. Milosevic's own case. So how can we be assisted unless we apply the

5 Rules and make him adhere to the Rules?

6 MR. KAY: Sometimes, and I appreciated the question from Your

7 Honour which was seeking, well, Mr. Saxon, shouldn't we really have a

8 waiver of this issue, because you are aware yourself, as it was quite

9 clear from his objection, as to what the parameters of these issues were

10 and he is aware of the issues that are behind the line of questioning of

11 the accused of the witness and that was why he made that highly technical

12 objection, fuelled with the specifics of the issue that it goes to,

13 because he knows it and he's aware of it.

14 As a matter of presentation, it's very difficult to comment about

15 that, and I do say that Your Honour's advance to the Prosecution was of

16 course well-intentioned in recognising the difficulties of the situation,

17 but in terms of the sloppiness or otherwise, that's -- that's a difficult

18 issue for me to deal with.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: We're going to take the break now for 20 minutes,

21 and -- Mr. Saxon.

22 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, very briefly. I just feel compelled to

23 verify something that Mr. Kay mentioned. Mr. Kay argues that the

24 Prosecution has masses of this material, we have easy access to it, that

25 the Prosecution's objection is unduly technical.

Page 38174

1 Assigned Defence counsel are well aware that while the Prosecution

2 may have large quantities of material and documents in its possession,

3 finding this material and reviewing it is another matter, and this is

4 something that has come up recently in conversations between assigned

5 Defence counsel and the Prosecution as we have -- as the Prosecution has

6 been trying to assist Defence counsel in reconstructing its material

7 disclosed pursuant to Rule 68.

8 So the suggestion that it is simply easy and quick for the

9 Prosecution to find some material related to a particular point of

10 forensic expertise is simply unfounded. The suggestion that the

11 Prosecution has a number of expert advisors, quote, who assist them with

12 their expertise may in part be true. The Prosecution can pick up the

13 phone or send an e-mail, perhaps, to an expert. However, we have to know

14 before that what kind of expertise we need and what issues we have to deal

15 with, and that is part of the problem here, that we have not been put on

16 proper notice of that.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Saxon.

18 We'll rule on this when we return after the 20-minute break. We

19 will adjourn now.

20 --- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.

21 --- On resuming at 11.02 a.m.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: In the break, the Chamber examined the transcript

23 of Dr. Helena Ranta's evidence. She, as you remember, was called as a

24 Court witness. On pages 17726 and 27, I'll read the questions and

25 answers:

Page 38175

1 Question by Mr. Nice: "On the clothing you found no evidence

2 of military or paramilitary insignia having been removed?

3 "A. No, we didn't find any, any indication of that.

4 "Q. And indeed, in short, you found nothing to indicate

5 that these individuals were other than unarmed civilians.

6 "A. At the time -- at that time, there was no indication of

7 them being anything but unarmed civilians."

8 The question now is why shouldn't the accused be allowed to put

9 the same kind of question to this witness? What stands in the way of that

10 question being put is the absence of a report required by Rule 94 bis.

11 It does not appear to the Chamber that that is a sufficient reason

12 to disallow a question of the kind being put. The Chamber has considered

13 whether there is any prejudice to the Prosecution in allowing the question

14 to be put, and we conclude that there is no prejudice to the Prosecution

15 and that, in the interest of fairness, the question should be put.

16 Mr. Milosevic, I'm going to put the question, and I'm going to

17 follow the pattern of the questioning by Mr. Nice

18 So, Doctor, I'm going to ask you, did you find anything to

19 indicate that these individuals were other than unarmed civilians?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, first of all, we found

21 several layers of clothing, which indicated that the people were out in

22 the open in the month of January, the 15th or the 14th of January, because

23 it is not customary to be in the house wearing that kind of clothing.

24 For four cases, if I might be allowed to say something with

25 respect to those four individuals, four bodies, and I have taken my notes,

Page 38176

1 based on the notes that I took when I left Pristina, may I be allowed to

2 say something?

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Racak number 7. Dark blue jacket,

5 maroon pullover, dark green sweatshirt, light green pullover,

6 short-sleeved T shirt, dark blue corduroy trousers, blue sweatshirt

7 trousers, red sweatshirt trousers with a cord belt or elastic belt, dark

8 blue socks, black rubber half boots with a zipper lined with artificial

9 fur, and the make was Ozel, the O with the two dots over it. That was one

10 case.

11 JUDGE KWON: What you are reading is tab 4, the first item on tab

12 4.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that's right.

14 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let us note the sweatshirt is

16 sweatsuit.

17 Racak 11 had the following: Black cotton jacket, green pullover,

18 grey-green pullover, grey pullover, maroon T shirt, short-sleeved, denim

19 jeans, black sweatsuit trousers, long knitted underpants, made at home

20 probably, grey, and two pairs of socks. We didn't find any shoes on that

21 corpse.

22 The next number is Racak 22, RA22, and the body had as follows:

23 Maroon cotton-lined jacket, dark blue knitted pullover, grey knitted vest,

24 shirt, black cotton T-shirt with long sleeves, black rubber boots the same

25 as the type I described earlier on, lined with the official -- artificial

Page 38177

1 fur, Ozel is the make. Grey short socks, green knitted wool socks, lined

2 jeans, black sweatsuit trousers, white long underpants.

3 And RA24 was wearing jeans, black cotton-lined jacket, short black

4 lined jacket -- so he had two jackets -- beige polo shirt, black and grey

5 short-sleeved T-shirt, jeans, and blue sweatsuit trousers.

6 People dressed like this certainly don't sit at home in the early

7 hours of the morning which, according to information, was when this event

8 took place, which indicates that the people were very warmly dressed and

9 had to be outside somewhere. And the second indication of this clothing,

10 which leads us to conclude on what I said yesterday according to my

11 experience, is that all the external parts of the clothing, jackets and so

12 on, were either black or dark in colour, dark brown or black or dark grey,

13 very similar to black. And this was the colour that the Territorial

14 Defence wore with the assignment to secure the headquarters in the

15 villages, and a large number of KLA members who did not have sufficient

16 numbers of uniforms to put on would wear this kind of clothing. So that

17 was also the colour that the KLA police wore.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Mr. Milosevic.

19 JUDGE KWON: Doctor -- just a second, Mr. Milosevic.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Judge Kwon, yes.

21 JUDGE KWON: Dr. Dobricanin, my understanding is that the 40

22 victims were later all identified. Do you have the names of these four

23 bodies, RA7 to 24?

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They exist in the list which the

25 investigating judge Mrs. Marinkovic supplied. During the autopsy, we did

Page 38178

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Page 38179

1 not know the identity of these individuals. Identification process came

2 later or parallel with our work, and all the bodies marked in this way

3 were marked with their names and surnames in that list. I don't know,

4 maybe I could find it. That wasn't my job, but as I say, I had it in my

5 own notes while performing the autopsies of these four corpses. I

6 happened to come across that. Otherwise, I do know, because I was present

7 with the 36 autopsies, that all the individuals, all the bodies that were

8 brought in to us had several layers of clothing on them.

9 JUDGE KWON: Proceed, Mr. Milosevic.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Kwon.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Just one detail. You have just explained to us that they all wore

13 several layers of clothing. Now, what about the injuries on the body?

14 Did they correspond to the tears in the clothing?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. In all cases?

17 A. Yes, in all cases.

18 Q. Thank you. We have seen here, Professor, many photographs of dead

19 bodies in Racak. On some of those photographs of the bodies, where the

20 bodies were when William Walker was there, for example, that was shown on

21 several occasions in this courtroom, at least on two of the corpses we see

22 the traditional Albanian cap, called the Keca, on the corpses' heads,

23 skullcap.

24 Now, we have the photographs in tab 5. There are better quality

25 photographs as well that were produced here in colour, but never mind.

Page 38180

1 Here we can see Walker next to a corpse with the skullcap, and on the

2 previous page we can see another body, and we can see that the individual

3 was shot in the head. That's to be found in tab 5. Once again with the

4 skullcap.

5 Now, as somebody with a great deal of experience in the field of

6 forensic science in killings from firearms, how can you comment? May we

7 have your comments on that fact. Somebody who has been hit, has fallen

8 down, this man has been hit in the head, and yet he has a skullcap on his

9 head. Is that possible? How is that possible?

10 A. Never, not in a single case throughout my entire career have I had

11 occasion to see somebody hit by a projectile, fall down to the ground, or

12 hit by a vehicle for that matter, or hit by a stick or stone, and I saw a

13 lot of that in Kosovo and Metohija, never could the person have retained

14 his cap on his head. The cap would have fallen off and would be lying

15 somewhere around the body, depending upon the kinetic energy and force at

16 play.

17 In these concrete cases, in addition to the observation and

18 conclusion I have just made, there is another additional observation to be

19 made, and that is this: That this man with the exit/entrance wound, which

20 you can see quite clearly on the photograph, indicates that in such a case

21 you would never have a skullcap remaining on the head. Even different

22 kinds of caps or hats that have not been firmly attached to the head would

23 have remained on the head if you were killed, wounded with a bullet or

24 anywhere else and fallen to the ground. So this is a very shallow cap.

25 It's a skullcap perched on the top of the head, a little towards the back,

Page 38181

1 yet more reason that it would have fallen off. That has been my

2 experience. That has been the experience of my colleagues, and I have had

3 occasion to discuss things like that, why the cap can or cannot fall off

4 the head. So this is something that is absolutely established if you look

5 at the features of that particular type of skullcap.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Whether the cap would remain on the head after

7 being hit by a projectile, wouldn't that depend on the nature of the cap

8 and how closely placed it was to the head? If the cap were a

9 loose-fitting cap, then more than likely it would fall off. But if it

10 were a tightly fitting cap, there would have been a likelihood, wouldn't

11 there, that it would remain?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, other types of caps

13 that are not fastened to -- under the chin or to your neck wouldn't have

14 stayed on either if the body had fallen to the ground and hit the ground,

15 because it falls very quickly from the force of the projectile. This cap

16 is placed superficially on the head, lightly on the head, and even when

17 you happen to trip and fall, the hat falls off, or the cap falls off, let

18 alone if you're hit by a projectile or projectiles which have strong

19 kinetic energy. The cap never remains on the head in this position. It

20 would fall away and fall to one side or another side and would remain

21 somewhere around the body at a certain distance which can be always the

22 same or approximately the same.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Professor, now, all these bodies, did they all have wounds caused

Page 38182

1 by firearms? And I'd like to point out tab 6 to you now, point 4 of tab

2 6, which is a general conclusion. General conclusion in tab 6. And I'd

3 like to draw your attention to point 4, which reads as follows -- I hope

4 gentlemen, that you have the document. General conclusion, tab 6,

5 paragraph 4 or point 4. It says: "On the basis of the autopsies

6 conducted, it was established that death in all cases was caused by

7 projectiles fired from hand-held firearms."

8 Now, does that mean that all the bodies you examined had wounds

9 caused by firearms on them?

10 A. Yes, exclusively wounds caused by firearms, all 40 corpses.

11 Q. And did death ensue due to those wounds or for some other reason

12 on any of those 40 bodies?

13 A. Death followed exclusively as a result of the wounds inflicted by

14 firearms on each of those bodies. There was damage to the internal

15 organs, the abdomen, the thorax, or the brain, the skull, cerebral.

16 Q. Now, were these wounds inflicted with the firearms during the

17 person's life or after the person was dead?

18 A. All the wounds found on the corpses caused by firearms were

19 administered during -- while the person was alive.

20 Q. I'd like to draw your attention to this same tab, tab number 6,

21 and point 5 in the general conclusions, which says: "All injuries were

22 pre-mortem (inflicted while the victims were alive), except in the case of

23 six bodies which had also had the injuries that had been caused by animals

24 after death occurred."

25 Do you confirm that?

Page 38183

1 A. Yes. And it confirms the previous finding which means that wounds

2 were found caused by firearms on all the bodies and on six bodies, in

3 addition, there were injuries caused by animals that were inflicted after

4 death at some period, that is to say post-mortem.

5 Q. Professor, tell us, please, how many of the bodies had just one

6 wound inflicted by a firearm.

7 A. On seven of the bodies we found just one single wound, gunshot

8 wound.

9 Q. Is this an overview that we find in tab 7 of what can be

10 established for all of them? Is this the sum total of all the 40 corpses?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. So in tab 7, you have number of wounds: One, seven -- with seven

13 people; two wounds on two individuals; three wounds on four individuals;

14 and so on. We can see the number of wounds per individual, or per corpse.

15 And we can see that there is a great deal of difference. What was the

16 largest number of wounds found on one body?

17 A. Nineteen wounds was the largest number of wounds found on one

18 body.

19 Q. Would you tell me now, how does the number of wounds on those

20 individual bodies fit in with the theory that the bodies -- that the

21 people were executed?

22 A. This finding seems to corroborate the conclusions of my

23 colleagues.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Saxon, yes.

25 MR. SAXON: Again, I would make the same objection, Your Honour.

Page 38184

1 I don't know whether -- that this is going to the crucial heart of the

2 matter, and he is expressing an expert opinion.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I kindly ask you to bear in mind

6 something that ought to be obvious to everyone. This witness is

7 testifying to his own professional work, to his own personal participation

8 in this procedure, and he was involved in the role of an expert. He was

9 not a policeman there. He was not an assistant or a technician. So we

10 are here in a borderline area. We have a witness who was involved as an

11 expert. That's one.

12 Second, he is not making conclusions now. He's testifying to the

13 conclusions that were made at the time when this work was performed.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you have presented us with an

15 unnecessary difficulty and complication by the manner in which you have

16 chosen to present the evidence of this witness, because if you say that he

17 was involved as an expert, then, you see, the Prosecutor has a ground for

18 objecting on what may be called a technical basis, that the provisions of

19 Rule 94 bis have not been complied with.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, he is testifying to

21 facts, to his own professional work, and he did work as a forensic expert.

22 He did not work in some other capacity. He worked as an expert, but his

23 forensic examination is a fact. It's part of the facts.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you would dissolve the difference

25 between fact and expert opinion.

Page 38185

1 Mr. Kay?

2 MR. KAY: Well, he is being asked to give his opinion that he had

3 at the time, and that is really what the accused is -- that's the way he's

4 seeing it and presenting this argument, that it is a fact that your

5 opinion at the time was this. And that is, I suppose, the dissolving

6 issue that Your Honour mentioned. It's the integrity of the process.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Saxon, it's a difficult issue. It's a

8 technical issue, but beyond the technicalities, we have to be concerned

9 with the issues of fairness, and this witness has important evidence to

10 give. I, for my own part, would like to hear it.

11 MR. SAXON: That's exactly my point, Your Honour; that this

12 witness could give potentially very important evidence, and the

13 Prosecution would like to be prepared to hear it if he's going to be

14 making -- if he's going to be in this courtroom giving opinions based on

15 the work that he did.

16 JUDGE KWON: It seems to me that the accused does not just

17 understand the meaning of Rule 94 bis. He can introduce this tab 7

18 through this witness, but if he's going to ask the -- his opinion being

19 based upon this document, he should have produced a report pursuant to

20 Rule 94 bis. That's as simple as that.

21 [Trial Chamber confers]

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: We are going to allow the witness to answer the

23 question. It's either that he be allowed to answer the question now or

24 that he prepare a report and come back with the report. We think that the

25 interest of expediting the procedures requires that he be allowed to

Page 38186

1 answer the question now.

2 Mr. Milosevic, I'm considering, though, that in future we may, in

3 fact, order you to prepare reports where you're going to have witnesses

4 who will be testifying as to their expertise. I'm seriously considering

5 that.

6 Answer the question.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. So, Professor, let me repeat the question, because some time has

9 elapsed since I last asked it.

10 My question was: How did the number of wounds on individual

11 bodies fit with the theory that the people were executed?

12 A. The number of wounds would not be decisive in determining whether

13 it was an execution or not, but the bullet path directions indicated - and

14 we were not witnesses, I emphasise - that it was more likely that they

15 found their deaths in the course of combat or an exchange of fire.

16 Q. And tell me, Professor, did you make all your findings at the time

17 when you were performing the analysis, the examination?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. What was the method used --

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Just before you move on, can I ask you this,

21 Doctor: Have you a wide experience of finding on post-mortem that someone

22 had been executed?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know if I understood you

24 correctly. You mean post-mortem executed?

25 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no. You're giving opinion evidence about

Page 38187

1 whether something was an execution or not, and I would like to know how

2 many executions you've established in your experience.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Your Honours, I never

4 witnessed any executions, nor have I ever been absolutely certain that

5 somebody found their death as a result of an execution. But I did meet

6 cases in the period from 1996 to 1998 where it was obvious that a person

7 was killed with a single burst of gunfire, and judging by the traces on

8 the clothing, it was clear that the person was pushed against the wall.

9 There were traces of plaster on the back. And even in this case I'm not

10 saying that we can rule out execution only on the basis of the number of

11 wounds, but circumstantial evidence such as bullet path directions and

12 other things that we constantly discussed and re-discussed during the

13 post-mortem, whether the trajectory was lateral or slanted or whatever,

14 indicated that death was caused in the course of some sort of struggle,

15 combat, the kind that I was aware of before I ever came to do that

16 examination in Racak.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I continue, Mr. Robinson?

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Professor, how -- in what way was it established whether those

21 persons were shot from a distance or at close range?

22 A. Nowadays all gunshot wounds are divided into long distance and

23 close range. There is the kind of wound that is caused by putting the gun

24 to the head or a distance of two or three millimetres. It all depends on

25 the type of weapon, type of ammunition, calibre, et cetera.

Page 38188

1 We found some traces, such as gunpowder particles, that indicate

2 that they were probably killed from a distance of one to two metres since

3 the weapon use was an automatic rifle. Those are the elements that

4 compared, used internationally, the distance between the body and the

5 barrel from which the gunshot came.

6 Q. In the case of these 40 persons, was it established whether they

7 were killed from a distance or from close range?

8 A. Apart from one or two who were killed from a distance of one, two

9 metres, all the other bodies were killed from a distance greater than two

10 metres.

11 Q. Let me come back to tab 6 --

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask you, is that a finding that was made at

13 the time and recorded somewhere?

14 MR. KAY: Can I assist because it did arise earlier and Your

15 Honour has been concerned about this point. If you go to tab 3, page 220

16 of the Finnish article in the Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine.

17 JUDGE KWON: 3.1.

18 MR. KAY: 3.1, sorry. About 12 or 13 lines up from the bottom in

19 the left-hand column, the paragraph beginning: "The victims had a

20 variable number of intra-vital gunshot injuries caused by hand weapons

21 most likely assault rifles," and then this point: "The gunshot injuries

22 were established to be the cause of death and only one case was suspected

23 a close-range discharge."

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Kay.

25 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: The long distance mentioned

Page 38189

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Page 38190

1 was specified as 50 to 200 metres or even 250 metres.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Professors, here in tab 6 --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Saxon.

5 MR. SAXON: I apologise. I'm wondering if the interpreters could

6 explain to us what that last comment meant.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, it wasn't clear to me.

8 MR. SAXON: It might be an important point.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: What were you -- may I ask the interpreters.

10 THE INTERPRETER: It was an omission from a previous answer of

11 Mr. Dobricanin. Specified what kind of long distance.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It says here that the interpreters

14 noted that the long distance mentioned was specified as 50 to 200 or 250

15 metres.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, in the interests of clarity, would

17 you just repeat the question to which that answer would be relevant so we

18 can have it.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. The question had to do

20 with point 9 of tab 6, which you had in front of you. It reads: "In all

21 cases, traces of gunpowder explosion were not macroscopically observed

22 (distance) except in the case of two wounds in which there was serious

23 doubt as to the relative distance." And this is what the witness said.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor, can you then give the comment that you

25 gave earlier about the distance, the long range.

Page 38191

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It is obviously a major mistake in

2 the interpretation. When you speak about distance, that means the

3 distance between the mouth of the barrel and the body. We have to speak

4 about three factors; small distance and long distance. There is two kinds

5 of small distance; immediate vicinity and minor distance. This distance

6 is 50 to 80 centimetres in small distances. And in long distances, it is

7 1.5 metres, not 100. When we are talking about these kind of deaths where

8 we have traces of injury inflicted from afar, then the distance from the

9 barrel is over 2 metres, not 200 metres. It's 2 to 2.5 metres. It can go

10 up to a kilometre depending on the range of the weapon.

11 I believe I have clarified the mistake.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Thank you.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Professor, you have just explained the professional distinctions

15 made between a close-range shot and a shot from a distance. You said that

16 something -- that close-range is qualified as up to 2 metres and over that

17 distance is considered to be a shot from a distance. What was decisive in

18 your determining whether those persons were killed at close range or not?

19 A. Those persons were killed from a distance, and only one or two

20 were killed from what you could call a relative -- relatively close range

21 of up to 150 centimetres from the barrel -- from the mouth of the barrel.

22 Q. Is that the distance from which the projectiles came?

23 A. We cannot determine that. We cannot determine that definitively.

24 It is 1.5 to 2 metres if we are talking about close range. Everything

25 else is considered long distance.

Page 38192

1 Q. Before the aggression against Yugoslavia, and I believe you

2 remember the statement of the American President Clinton who said that old

3 people, women and children had been rounded up and killed, forced to kneel

4 in the gutter and showered by gunfire, can you tell me, was there any

5 grounds for that statement in any fact that is available?

6 A. Among the casualties we found in Racak, among the victims, there

7 was 39 men and one woman. Not on a single body did we find a trace of

8 application of any other force than gunfire, than a bullet or a

9 projectile. So all these statements made at press conferences cannot be

10 true.

11 Q. In paragraph 66 -- you just mentioned a new fact now. I mean a

12 new fact in terms of your testimony. Here in paragraph 66 it says: "A

13 group of 25 men tried -- attempted to hide in a building, but were

14 discovered by the forces of the FRY and Serbia. They were beaten and then

15 they were moved to a nearby hill, where they were shot and killed."

16 Professor, did you say a few moments ago that it was not

17 established that any one of the 40 examined bodies had been beaten?

18 A. Not on a single body which we autopsied, and that was a total of

19 40 bodies, did we find any traces of physical force in terms of mechanical

20 tools of any type except for the traces that I keep referring to time and

21 again, the traces of the projectiles fired from firearms.

22 Q. Can it therefore be established that it was reliably established

23 through your professional work that not a single person who was killed had

24 any injuries that were due to some kind of beating, because 25 men are

25 referred to here who were beaten and then shot and killed. Would there

Page 38193

1 have to be traces of any kind of blows that they had sustained before they

2 had been shot and killed?

3 A. On these bodies there weren't any such traces --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Saxon.

5 MR. SAXON: Again, we are dealing with a point in the indictment,

6 and it appears the witness is being asked his opinion as to what happened

7 to the victims at Racak that day.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: I think you're going too far there, Mr. Saxon.

9 He examined the -- these persons, and he's being asked to say whether

10 there were any traces of any kind of blows. I think he should be able to

11 answer that.

12 Yes. What's the answer?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There were no traces of intra-vital

14 wounds. There were some scratches on the skin as the body fell, and also

15 there were post-mortem wounds due to that rodents that had gnawed at the

16 bodies, as I already mentioned.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. How was the bullet path direction determined, from the firearms?

19 A. On the basis of forensic doctrines; namely, finding and marking

20 the entry wound, finding and marking the exit wound, linking up the path

21 from the entry wound to the exit wound, and also the other parameters

22 measured from the heel. Sometimes people measure from the shoulder and

23 head, but we usually measure from the heel, from the foot. And since

24 people sometimes have footwear, then we also add the thickness of the

25 sole. We invariably take photographs of the entry wound and the

Page 38194

1 direction. If we did not find the exit wound, then we would follow in the

2 autopsy until we found the projectile, and then we did that from the entry

3 wound and all the way to the projectile and we found out which direction

4 was taken.

5 At any rate, even when projectiles only tangentially touched the

6 skin, and sometimes in part of the subcutaneous tissue, we always

7 established what the path was.

8 We were not the only ones to photograph that. Everybody who was

9 present did; the Finnish team and the OSCE observers too.

10 Q. In the case of bodies that have several wounds, were the wounds

11 sustained from the same distance or from the same direction or was it

12 shooting coming from different directions?

13 I would like to draw your attention to point 6 of the general

14 conclusions in tab 6, where it says: "Gunshot wounds were localised on

15 different parts and sides of the body and went in various directions."

16 A. As for the bodies, where there were several wounds the path

17 directions were different. There were all sorts of directions. So in

18 that case, we had to take several probes and depict in this way the path

19 directions so as to produce a clear picture that would be registered by

20 camera too.

21 In the case of bodies where there was only one wound, there would

22 be only one path direction, logically, but in the case of several wounds

23 we did not find that the shooting came from one direction only but

24 different directions because we had different bullet path directions as

25 well.

Page 38195

1 Q. Professor, and is it possible now -- let us make an assumption in

2 order to make the entire thing clear, because you explained that these

3 wounds were sustained by firing that came from different directions, when

4 a person is shot, can a person fall and in this way can it seem that the

5 firing came from different directions when the body rotates?

6 A. Well, that possibility cannot be precluded. And a different part

7 of the body can be affected as well. However, the direction cannot be

8 different. The direction always has to be at the same height, even if

9 there had been a rotation. If this is a body that is falling, it would be

10 very hard to say whether the body was shot at while it was falling.

11 Again, the path direction can be vertical in relation to the body or the

12 wound can be sustained while the body is in a different position.

13 This is a question of dynamics. The body that is shot at is not

14 static.

15 Q. Let me put a very precise question and let's see what the answer

16 is going to be. In the case of these bodies with several wounds from

17 Racak, is the situation such that it is possible that the firing was

18 coming from approximately the same direction?

19 A. In some cases yes, but in most cases no.

20 THE INTERPRETER: Could the accused please be asked to read his

21 questions slower.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the interpreters are asking you to

23 speak more slowly.

24 Mr. Milosevic, just a minute.

25 [Trial Chamber confers]

Page 38196

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Continue, Mr. Milosevic.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Tell me now, Professor, since you explained that the multiple

5 wounds came from different directions, in the case of these persons with

6 multiple wounds among the dead from Racak, what was the situation in

7 regard to the bullet path directions that were established during the

8 autopsies? How does that fit with the assertion that these persons had

9 been executed, shot and killed?

10 A. This fits into a different assertion, namely that these persons

11 were killed in a war conflict, because when there is execution, we do not

12 have wounds from different directions. Perhaps horizontally, but it is

13 simply impossible that it would come from a higher altitude.

14 Q. Thank you. You mentioned that on some bodies traces were found

15 and -- of post-mortem injury, that is, and in tab 6 again, you say: "All

16 injuries were pre-mortem (inflicted while the victims were alive), except

17 in the case of six bodies which also had injuries that had been caused by

18 animals after death occurred." How did you establish that they were

19 caused by animals, and how did you establish that it was after death?

20 Was this done in a reliable fashion? Was it done applying customary

21 forensic procedure?

22 A. In view of the fact that the bodies of the killed persons in Racak

23 lay out the open or perhaps in that mosque for four days - I don't know

24 with they were transferred to the mosque, but they had certainly been out

25 in the open for a longer period of time - we established on the basis of

Page 38197

1 what the edges of the bones looked like. They could have been gnawed at

2 by rodents, bigger or smaller rodents. When we looked at the edges of the

3 bones that we cleaned beforehand, they were there also where the skulls

4 were badly damaged. Animals would not attack parts of the body that were

5 covered by footwear and clothing, of course. They mostly attack parts of

6 the body that during fighting or during a normal killing were destroyed.

7 So then if there is subcutaneous tissue or parts of the brain that are

8 accessible, then they gnaw at them, and they gnaw at the bones and the

9 soft tissue. We established that with absolute certainty. Our colleagues

10 from Finland agreed with that, and our colleagues from Belorussia. We

11 describe that in our findings, each and every one individually, and that

12 is an absolute truth which speaks of the fact that the post-mortem wounds

13 were caused by animals. That is documented. We have it on all parts of

14 the body where this happened. It wasn't a large number of bodies that had

15 been affected in this way, but it was skull wounds mostly.

16 Q. All right. Were there any other post-mortem activities carried

17 out vis-a-vis the bodies except for what the animals had caused as you

18 said just now?

19 A. There was absolutely no other post-mortem activity carried out

20 against the bodies.

21 Q. And one of the corpses the body is separated from the head. How

22 did that happen?

23 A. This can be seen on the video footage and on the photograph.

24 However, this is a body that I saw at the mosque. It was lying there.

25 The head had been destroyed, but there were parts of the tissue that were

Page 38198

1 near the body, and those were parts of the skull. When we were -- when we

2 were separating the bones from the soft tissue - we took photographs

3 before that, of course - and we found traces that looked like those coming

4 from rodents, but this had to be established on pure bone tissue. Then it

5 was separated from the other part of the head, and on that part where

6 there were injuries, we found that. It was certainly that these were

7 intra-vital wounds, that is to say that they happened while the person was

8 still alive and that these were gunshot wounds.

9 The possibility of destruction of these projectiles and the fact

10 that the skull is constructed in such a way that it can be blown up with a

11 single projectile, but we are absolutely certain that the body was not cut

12 off from the body [as interpreted].

13 Q. What you said now in tab 9. Please look at tab 9. It's quite

14 legible in English. You signed it, Professor Dr. Milos Tasic, Professor

15 Dr. Vujadin Otasevic, and Professor Dusan Dunjic, and the experts from

16 Belorussia, Kuzmichov and Levkovic. In the conclusions, in item V, it

17 says: "Beside the shell impact, a wide range of postmortal neck wounds

18 were found with the visible traces of animal teeth and postmortal

19 scratches over the preserved skin. The head is practically missing except

20 for a few broken bone parts. After the technical treatment of the skull

21 bones and neck spine was carried out, it was confirmed the animal teeth

22 traces existing over the cervical vertebrae."

23 So you established very precisely in terms of one of these cases

24 that it was caused by animals. Is that what this document in tab 9

25 confirms?

Page 38199

1 A. Yes, that is correct. These were big animals, not only mice and

2 rats. And they simply took away parts of the soft tissue and of the skull

3 bones. We did not find all bones on that skull, only a small part. That

4 means that they were tearing it apart as it was a destroyed head, and they

5 were taking away parts of the bone and soft tissue. And we found this on

6 the edges of the soft tissue that was still there.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Gentlemen, may I just draw your

8 attention to the following: That tabs 8, 9, and 10 have already been

9 admitted into evidence as P156, tab 14.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Professor Dobricanin, Yugoslav experts with each of these bodies

13 established which of the wounds caused death. Here in tab 10, we have all

14 the reports for each individual corpse, examined corpse; is that right?

15 A. Yes. This is -- the reports have RA numbers 1 to 40, which means

16 that they were all the bodies that we conducted autopsies on, that is 40

17 in all, with the conclusion, the cause of death, and everything to

18 substantiate that, that the wounds were not inflicted after death, et

19 cetera, et cetera.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Doctor. Doctor, where is your detailed post-mortem

21 report that any pathologist would prepare when carrying out a post-mortem

22 in a case involving suspicious death?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour Judge Bonomy, all the

24 other evidence or, rather, all the documents with the sketches are at the

25 Institute for Forensic Medicine, and in mid-June I was forced out under

Page 38200

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Page 38201

1 threat of arms, together with my associates. We managed to escape through

2 Baskvica [phoen], where nobody expected us, and took with us only what we

3 had on our person. So the documents stayed there. I have no further

4 access to any documents or anything else that is there.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Now, with respect to that answer,

6 following on from it, gentlemen, I'd like to draw your attention once

7 again to the fact, in view of your comments with respect to the exhibits,

8 that it is very difficult for me to access documents, and I'd like to

9 reiterate once again that I have no access to any archives. I have

10 already pointed that out to you on several occasions. So as far as

11 resources go, my position cannot be compared at all with the position that

12 Mr. Nice and his associates have.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Professor --

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Saxon.

16 MR. SAXON: Just one comment, Your Honour, that it is always up to

17 the accused to make applications for access to archives under Rule 54

18 bis. So the real question is has he made such applications and what

19 responses has he received, if any.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Quite so, Mr. Milosevic. Rule 54 bis, as you

21 well know, is available to you.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson. When I say

23 "archives," I did not say the archives of Mr. Nice. I had in mind the

24 archives in Yugoslavia.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's the purpose of Rule 54 --

Page 38202

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am not aware of the fact that

2 Mr. Nice --

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: That is the purpose of Rule 54 bis. It allows

4 you to apply for information, to request information from states. That

5 includes your own. Very much so.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, my associates filed a

7 number of applications to which they didn't even receive an answer, let

8 alone a document.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, the next step -- the next step, if they

10 filed an application to the state and received no answer, then they should

11 come under Rule 54 and ask the Chamber to require the states to produce

12 the information. That's the standard procedure.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, this is important. Did you apply for the

14 documents that this witness might have brought here to demonstrate in

15 detail the investigation that was carried out on each body?

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, I cannot be specific

17 now. My associates asked for all the documents which the competent

18 ministries and state organs have in their possession.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: If they do that, they won't get any. What they

20 have to do is ask for relevant documents once you identify the issues

21 which have to be dealt with. So you have access. You have available the

22 facilities to obtain the material you need to present your case. As the

23 Appeals Chamber said, you're in the driving seat.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Bonomy.

25 Gentlemen, to economise on time, I propose that we don't go

Page 38203

1 through all the 40 reports and examine them but that we take tab 10

2 collectively, and I would like to tender them into evidence as a set of

3 documents. But if you see fit, we can go through all 40 of them.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, we can take them as read. There is no need

5 to go through them. Unless, of course, you wish to highlight anything in

6 particular in relation to one.

7 MR. KAY: Can we add tabs 4, 5, 6, and 7 as well to the record?

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, they may be exhibited.

9 MR. SAXON: Your Honour.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Saxon.

11 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, if I may, the Prosecution would like to

12 discuss tab 5 during cross-examination with this witness. So perhaps if a

13 decision on tab 5, its admissibility, could be held in abeyance for the

14 time being.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Tab 5.

16 JUDGE KWON: Only the pictures were put to the witness in relation

17 to tab 5, right?

18 MR. SAXON: Well, Your Honour, I don't want to speak for the

19 accused or for the Defence as to how they would like tab 5 to be viewed or

20 reviewed by the Chamber. I believe only the photographs were mentioned.

21 I heard the name William Walker mentioned, but ...

22 [Trial Chamber confers]

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Well, we'll reserve consideration of the

24 admission of tab 5 until cross-examination.

25 JUDGE KWON: And as for the detailed surveys and pictures, do we

Page 38204

1 not have those pictures in Racak binder, in 156? We have tab 8, 9, and 10

2 in tab 14 of 156, but about the pictures?

3 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I can recognise two of the photographs,

4 yes. I don't want to speak about the rest of the material in tab 5.

5 JUDGE KWON: I remember we have a lot of them.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic, continue.

7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone for the accused.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Professor, you have testified and we established through the

10 documents that your -- your findings, the Belorussian findings, and

11 Finnish findings were identical, and this is confirmed by the articles

12 written by the Finnish pathologist; is that correct?

13 A. Yes, that is correct.

14 Q. You also observed that once you compiled your reports the Finnish

15 experts did not sign them. Is that correct?

16 A. Yes, that is correct.

17 Q. Now, does it emerge that there was not a single reason, because as

18 we can see there were no differences in your findings, that there was no

19 reason for them not to sign the reports?

20 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I made this objection during the first

21 session when the witness said, "I don't know why they did not sign."

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Agreed. Dealt with already. Move on, next

23 question.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, all I wish is to

25 establish here, and time was the key factor while manipulations were

Page 38205

1 taking place around the Racak events, that they were prevented from

2 signing something that they fully agreed to.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Move on to another question.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Have I understood you

5 correctly to say that tab 10 collectively has been accepted, admitted into

6 evidence?

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Fine. Thank you.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Now, bearing in mind -- bearing in mind everything that that

11 contains, in all cases or almost all cases death resulted from wounds to

12 the upper torso, to the head or to the thorax; is that right? Now, can

13 you comment on that fact. May we have your comments that all the people

14 who were killed were hit in the upper torso, that is to say the head and

15 the thorax.

16 A. In view of the fact that I went to the Racak area where we were

17 told that the conflict had taken place, the position of the body in the

18 trenches corresponds very well to the findings of the wounds during the

19 autopsy, because in that case the lower torso was protected, the legs and

20 so on, the abdomen, because they were in trenches. This isn't a medical

21 conclusion, it is my personal conviction.

22 Q. Now, tell us how come those who were killed were hit in their

23 upper -- in the upper part of their body? And you noted the direction,

24 the path, bullet path direction and the distance. How does that coincide

25 with paragraph 66 where it says the forces of SFRY and Serbia shot at the

Page 38206

1 inhabitants all over the village who were doing their best to flee, et

2 cetera, et cetera? We've already gone through that, how they were beaten,

3 captured, beaten, et cetera. We've been through all that.

4 Now, when you take all this together, add everything up, how they

5 were hit, where they were hit, from what directions, from what distance,

6 and all the rest, how does that coincide and compare with what it says

7 here, that the forces were shooting at the villagers from all sides and

8 that the villagers were trying to flee? How do you marry the two?

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: I will allow the question. It's very long and

10 convoluted. And you are objecting on the basis that it's what?

11 MR. SAXON: That it's asking for his opinion as an expert, Your

12 Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: It also strikes me as possibly asking him to judge

14 what we have to judge.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: You see, Mr. Milosevic, you run into a problem

16 when you read the indictment in that way. You read all of it, and then

17 put a question on the basis of all what you have read.

18 I think it would be -- it would be more acceptable to select and

19 identify a particular area and ask the witness a particular question that

20 is within his knowledge.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I do hope that the

22 question was specific and concrete. I just assumed the grounds --

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: It was very convoluted.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Professor, in your testimony thus far, you observed the following:

Page 38207

1 Hit in the upper part of the body. You spoke of the of hits, the

2 different directions, the distance, the range. So taking all those

3 elements together, bearing them all in mind, would you say that that

4 corresponded to what it says here in paragraph 66 where it says the forces

5 of the FRY and Serbia shot at the villagers who were trying to flee?

6 "Villagers who attempted to flee from the forces of the FRY and Serbia

7 were shot throughout the village." Do your findings --

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, that's a final issue. That's a

9 final issue which we have to decide.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: You see, you have elicited evidence from him

12 already on these matters, and that is sufficient. We will have to make a

13 judgement, and that judgement may very well accord with your own

14 assessment of the situation.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Professor, did you establish traces of gunpowder, or possible

17 traces of gunpowder? Did you look at that, traces of gunpowder on the

18 hands of the corpses you conducted an autopsy on?

19 A. Yes, the crime technicians did that at the Institute for Forensic

20 Medicine, in our own laboratory, and from all the bodies, from the hands

21 of all the bodies they took prints of what was on the hands using an

22 adhesive foil upon which they drew a schematic of the hands themselves.

23 This is special foil that is used for these purposes, this adhesive foil.

24 And they found a positive reaction to nitrites in 37 cases. Positive

25 reaction on the spots and places which correspond to the outside of the

Page 38208

1 hand, the index finger and middle finger, and the underside of the thumb.

2 In certain cases there were very small particles of gunpowder on the palms

3 of the hands themselves. But this kind of analysis made it possible for

4 us to draw a conclusion that most probably those individuals had held

5 firearms from which they had shot.

6 Q. Thank you, Professor.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: We have to take the break now. It's past the

8 time. We will adjourn for 20 minutes. Mr. Nice.

9 MR. NICE: Your Honours, just in order to bring you up-to-date

10 with your earlier inquiry, there is some positive evidence, as opposed to

11 inferential, as to the movement of the bodies. Exhibit 208, which was a

12 92 bis statement of Beqiri, at page 5 deals with the movement of the

13 bodies that had been left in his house, two or three bodies, overnight,

14 and he says that "On the morning of the 17th, we took the bodies to the

15 village mosque. The 24 bodies of the persons who died in the Begus Hill

16 massacre were already there. They were brought to the mosque on the night

17 of the 16th of January of 1999." And he was cross-examined about this by

18 the accused, and he fleshed out the course of events, explaining how the

19 verifiers had come on the 16th, and in the evening the villagers took the

20 bodies to the mosque before burial.

21 So there is, to that extent, direct evidence in respect of the

22 particular bodies that this person himself moved on the 17th and his

23 direct knowledge and recounting of the movement --

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: That was as to 24.

25 MR. NICE: His direct evidence was as to the bodies in his house,

Page 38209

1 which were left in his house overnight, about three bodies, but he gives

2 an account of the movement by the villagers of the other bodies on the

3 night of the 16th.

4 Your Honour, one other point --

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: So that would be the Prosecution's case as to how

6 the bodies got to the morgue.

7 MR. NICE: That's not the only evidence. The rest of it is the

8 overall inferential case. And indeed, in cross-examination, as the

9 Chamber may recall, there was no challenge to that, although the accused

10 at one stage, I think, was asking questions suggesting that the bodies had

11 been brought in from elsewhere in order to be left in Racak.

12 Your Honours, before the -- can I ask one other thing. Helena

13 Ranta came as a Court witness.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

15 MR. NICE: We have, at the Court's invitation, contacted her since

16 then when some clarification was required, as you will recall. We intend

17 of course now, in light of the clearly expert elements of this witness's

18 evidence, to contact her again unless there is any objection from the

19 Bench to our doing so.

20 [Trial Chamber confers]

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. That would be -- that would be in order.

22 And I should say that in the light of the objections that have been raised

23 by Mr. Saxon about this evidence, that if the Prosecution feels that it

24 has been embarrassed in any way, or prejudiced, the Prosecution may

25 consider making a certain application.

Page 38210

1 MR. NICE: Certainly, Your Honour. Well, what we're going to do

2 is take every step to avoid having to make that application, although I

3 can easily envisage it might be our application at least to put off the

4 cross-examination perhaps from Tuesday to Wednesday or Thursday of next

5 week, depending on what assistance we're able to get.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. All right. We will adjourn now.

7 --- Recess taken at 12.22 p.m.

8 --- On resuming at 12.49 p.m.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, before you continue, just to deal

10 with the matter you raised at the beginning. We'll have the Status

11 Conference next week Thursday morning at 8.00. If we are not finished by

12 9.00, then we'll continue the following week at a time to be fixed.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

14 Before I continue, Mr. Robinson, I wish to draw everyone's

15 attention to one error in the transcript. It's LiveNote page 7, line 22,

16 at 9.24. It reads: "[In English] Question: That means that the Ministry

17 of Justice from Belgrade intervened that you should start this, and you

18 gave professional reasons why there should not be a postponement."

19 [Interpretation] What it should read is: "The Ministry of Justice

20 from Belgrade intervened that you should postpone this, and you gave

21 professional reasons why there should not be a postponement."

22 So instead of "start" --

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Milosevic.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Professor Dobricanin, before the break, after the question that

Page 38211

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Page 38212

1 related to gunpowder traces, I would like to draw your attention to para 3

2 in tab 6, which says, and I'll ask you a couple of more questions in

3 relation to this, it says: "Before the autopsy, the forensic service of

4 the Pristina investigation organs took handprints on plastic film and

5 fingerprints in the presence of OSCE verifiers and experts from Belarus."

6 Now, would you please tell me, what method did you use, and what

7 is the name of that method?

8 A. We use the method called, I believe incorrectly, the paraffin test

9 to examine, that is to test for residue of gunpowder explosion, that for

10 presence of nitrates present in gunpowder. It's called the paraffin test

11 because paraffin was used. It would be tested on a gauze solution.

12 However, we used self-adhesive foils that bear a drawing, a sketch of the

13 hand, to be able to test for the presence of nitrate residue. That is a

14 method that is widely used, not only in our country but is still used in

15 many places in the world, and perhaps there is a more advanced technology

16 that could more exactly determine the presence of these particles.

17 Q. Very well, Professor. Is this paraffin test regularly used in our

18 country?

19 A. Certainly. We don't use any other methods currently.

20 Q. What is the degree of reliability, and what compounds are tested

21 with this method?

22 A. What is tested is the presence of nitrates which are integral

23 parts of gunpowder. However, some other substances can also produce a

24 positive reaction.

25 Q. How many bodies in Racak presented a positive result in this test?

Page 38213

1 And based on what you say, this test could indicate that the persons in

2 question fired from weapons.

3 A. Nitrate residue was found on 37 bodies out of 40.

4 Q. On what body parts?

5 A. Mainly on those parts which you could expect to present this

6 residue if they fired from weapons; the upper part of the hand, around the

7 fingers, the index finger and the middle finger, and maybe some other

8 parts of the hand. That is the usual distribution of gunpowder particles.

9 Some were present on the palm itself, in smaller quantities. A

10 particle would be found on the palm of the hand, for instance.

11 Q. You mean they were found on 37 out of 40 bodies?

12 A. Yes, on all the 37.

13 Q. In case of a positive result, is such a finding reliable? Is it

14 certain?

15 A. Determining the presence of nitrates using Diphenylamine, which is

16 the substance used in this method, does not necessarily mean that nitrates

17 originate from gunpowder. Nitrates are present in other things such as

18 artificial fertiliser, sometimes tobacco, and sometimes human urine if

19 such urine is found on the hands. So that this method indicates the

20 possibility of nitrates originating from gunpowder explosion, but it does

21 not necessarily have to mean that.

22 Q. You are a university professor and you certainly follow our own

23 and international literature on the subject. What do scientists say on

24 this method of the paraffin glove or the paraffin test? Do you have any

25 examples to give us?

Page 38214

1 A. There have been numerous debates about whether the paraffin glove,

2 or more correctly the paraffin test, is a method that can be used on

3 persons suspected of having used a firearm. I found in one magazine -

4 Evidence Technology Magazine it's called - the issue of April 2004, a

5 description of a method which they call a very good method and is called

6 ISID, Instant Shooting method Identification. What is meant are gunpowder

7 particles. And it describes that the principal substance used for

8 examination is Diphenylamine, the same substance used in the paraffin

9 test. That's what they call it, although I wouldn't call it the paraffin

10 test. They explain that SEM test takes much longer, Scanning Electron

11 Macroscopy -- Microscopy, and ISID seems to be much better because it is

12 much cheaper, very good for using on the ground. It is the method of

13 choice. And in 90 per cent of the cases it is very good for comparison.

14 And the results correspond in a high percentage of cases with the results

15 obtained by other tests. They recommend this test to all forensics to be

16 used in field work, and based on that it seems that the use of

17 Diphenylamine is still a method that is good and can obtain reliable

18 results.

19 Both tests are used to determine the presence of nitrates.

20 Although the use of Diphenylamine differs in minor ways, the objectives of

21 both methods are equal.

22 I have to say that in the provincial SUP of Pristina when I worked

23 there in 1997 -- sorry, 1987, 1988, 1989, I heard in a workshop organised

24 by somebody from Paris where these matters were discussed widely that this

25 Diphenylamine method had been rejected. We didn't know then that a method

Page 38215

1 would be found using metal particles to determine the exact distance of

2 gunshots.

3 Q. Tell me, is it in tab 16, this document that refers to this new

4 test, "New field-test kit for gunshot residue doubles for both presumptive

5 and evidently testing." The heading is "Instant Feedback."

6 In your practice as forensic expert, did you have occasion to

7 frequently come across the use of this paraffin glove test?

8 A. Yes. While I worked in the criminal investigation technical

9 service of the provincial SUP, I frequently performed the test and various

10 experiments for the purposes of courts, and even later we used tests using

11 Diphenylamine and comparison with tests on the clothing versus the wound,

12 and there were cases when the test would come up negative. It could be

13 for two reasons: First, because the person did not indeed use firearms,

14 or because they washed their hands very well after that, or because no

15 gunpowder particles stuck to the hand, for various reasons.

16 A positive test, however, never turned out to be wrong in my

17 career and always corresponded with other later findings during the

18 investigation.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: In the -- may I ask the witness a question. In

20 tab 16, which has the information on the new ISID-1 test, the Instant

21 Shooter ID kit, it says it offers dual benefits, instant results in the

22 field plus assurance of reliability delivered by SEM, the SEM test.

23 May I ask the witness, what is the SEM test, and more

24 specifically, whether that was -- whether that compares with the test

25 which was used in Yugoslavia, the paraffin, or this in advance, another

Page 38216

1 test which is in advance of the paraffin test?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour Judge Robinson, that is

3 the Scanning Electron Microscopy test. It requires a scanning electron

4 microscope, which proves the presence of microscopic particles barium,

5 nitrate, metal particles found in projectiles themselves. When a

6 projectile, a bullet, goes through the barrel, it carries with it metal

7 particles and this method helps determine the distance from which a shot

8 was fired. However, this test, ISID, is a test for the presence of

9 gunpowder, nitrates precisely, and it uses Diphenylamine, which is also

10 used in the paraffin test that we used in Pristina. So it's practically

11 the same test with minor variations. For instance, we use the sulphuric

12 acid to dilute Diphenylamine, and they use a different acid, but both

13 tests are geared at determining the presence of gunpowder particles.

14 For instance, in their case, in their method, they sometimes can

15 find pollution by other articles, such as fertiliser. But both tests are

16 used to prove the presence of nitrates. Nitrates are present in

17 gunpowder, but -- and the whole issue is to determine whether they are

18 really from gunpowder or from some other substance, perhaps, such as urine

19 or fertiliser.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: So historically the paraffin test predates the

21 SEM, which also predates the ISID.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Historically the paraffin test has

23 been present since 1933. I believe it was Gonzales in Mexico City, a

24 researcher in the police of the Mexico City, who first used this test.

25 Afterwards -- of course, we all know that it is not specific and selective

Page 38217

1 as a test, but it indicates the possibility that the person tested has

2 used firearms.

3 After this test, the SEM method was developed. However, it

4 requires highly advanced technology and very expensive equipment in order

5 to be used. Some of my colleagues from the Institute of Forensic Medicine

6 in Nis experimented with it, but nowhere in the world is the SEM method

7 used first. Some other method is used to start with.

8 This method, ISID, published last year in this magazine is

9 completely the same method using Diphenylamine, and you get a result

10 showing the presence of bluish particles. The only difference is that

11 they use a kit and we use it on the spot with solutions containing

12 sulphuric acid.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I be clear on one thing, Doctor. You haven't

14 used this ISID test?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, because it was published last

16 year.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Secondly, am I right in thinking that the article

18 is in fact written by the chief executive officer of the company that

19 markets the kit?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour Judge Bonomy, you're

21 quite right possibly, because the price is mentioned here of both tests,

22 so probably it is an attempt to market the test, the kit, because the

23 price is -- and it says that the SEM method is a very expensive method,

24 and indeed it is quite costly. So to have such a costly test on the spot

25 for your regular policemen and police tests is difficult.

Page 38218

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Professor, you said that the origin of nitrate indicating that the

4 person has shot from a firearm can also be from artificial fertiliser, for

5 example, the nitrate can come from there. Is it possible that on the 15th

6 of January persons would have artificial fertiliser traces on their hands?

7 A. Well, I think that anybody who hears this knows that in January

8 there is no farming, no work in the fields done, and that artificial

9 fertiliser isn't used in the month of January.

10 Q. A moment ago you said that in all cases that you know about in

11 practice when you established a positive result for the paraffin glove

12 test, that later on this was confirmed again by the other investigations

13 and examinations, and that you always ascertain that it was indeed a

14 person who had shot from a firearm.

15 A. Yes, that is right. When we found the necessary distribution of

16 gunpowder particles.

17 Q. When you say distribution of gunpowder particles, you mean on the

18 characteristic parts of the hand where they were found; is that right?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Now, in all these cases was it found on these characteristic

21 places on the hand?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Thank you. Tell me now, please, whether by applying the paraffin

24 glove test are particles of nitrate taken away from the surface of the

25 hand, removed from the surface of the hand, and after you take away the

Page 38219

1 paraffin glove, can you find traces of the nitrate and apply a different

2 method afterwards?

3 A. Well, very frequently certain particles do remain, although most

4 of them are removed with the paraffin glove. But of course you won't have

5 every single particle stuck to the hand with the same force, so it is

6 possible that once you remove the paraffin glove traces of nitrate are

7 still found stuck to the surface of the hand. Not in the same quantity,

8 let that be noted. Not in the same amount.

9 Q. Which means that there is little likelihood that once this is

10 removed you will find some more particles?

11 A. Yes, it is sometimes possible, although the percentage is

12 negligible.

13 Q. Now, in view of your profession, did you have a chance of

14 listening to the testimony of Mrs. Helena Ranta here in The Hague?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Do you know that during her testimony Mrs. Ranta challenged and

17 questioned the value of the paraffin test when it came to - what's it

18 called? - Diphenylamine, yes Diphenylamine, that's what I mean.

19 A. Yes, I do know that. And that is why I gave you a length -- I

20 went to Interpol and told you everything I told you a moment ago by way of

21 explanation. If you need additional explanation, I shall be happy to

22 provide it.

23 Q. Professor, Mrs. Helena Ranta questioned and challenged the value

24 and worth of the test. Your personal opinion -- you have a different

25 personal opinion. Do I understand you correctly?

Page 38220

1 A. Well, yes. Helena Ranta did challenge the value of the test,

2 allegedly relying to Interpol recommendations dating back to '68. It was

3 a recommendation by Interpol in 1968 that one should apply the test with

4 caution and that it should be replaced by more reliable tests, where

5 possible. A reliable test with respect to nitrates has still not been

6 found, a completely reliable test. There is always that little bit of

7 possibility that it is not 100 per cent exact, especially with

8 non-combustible particles. But if according to one's experience you use

9 it according to the technology you have available, of course in our

10 country we don't have the possibility of using these more sophisticated

11 means.

12 I have been following the developments of Interpol and in America

13 the tests with Diphenylamine, the paraffin test as it's called, so that

14 this recommendation that was made was probably accepted only by those

15 countries who have highly sophisticated technology and centres where they

16 could exclusively apply scanning electron microscopy methods or this

17 latest new method. The paraffin test is still used in America.

18 Q. Now, this test of the paraffin -- the paraffin glove test, you

19 explained to us that in our country it was used on a regular basis, that

20 it is the customary test. Do you know whether it is used in many

21 countries in the world or just some?

22 A. I said a moment ago that it is used in a large number of countries

23 throughout the world, even in the United States, which is the most highly

24 advanced economic country. They don't use the SEM scanning electron

25 microscopy test, but they use the Diphenylamine test, and this is proof of

Page 38221

1 -- this latest advancement is proof of that because it still used the

2 Diphenylamine.

3 Q. Right. Now --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: May I just have a clarification. You say it is

5 used in the United States, which doesn't use the SEM but used the

6 something or other, it's missing from the transcript, test and this is

7 proof -- Diphenylamine. So what, do they use both -- does the United

8 States use both the paraffin test and the Diphenylamine?

9 JUDGE BONOMY: It's the same.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just clarify that for me.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, briefly, I will. You're

12 talking about working in the field, on the ground, on a terrain. You have

13 to clear things up quickly, you have to investigate, so you need fast

14 methods which give you the possibility of drawing certain conclusions

15 which need not be absolutely correct. It is only after that in the second

16 stage do you apply the more sophisticated methods, which are administered

17 by those who have them. Now, in countries that don't have them, they

18 continue to work the way we do. And you must understand that we're a poor

19 country, that we have no other possibility of applying anything else

20 except the method that we apply, and there are quite -- very many

21 countries similar to ours in the world.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. Professor Dobricanin, did Helena Ranta -- well, she held a press

25 conference with respect to the events in Racak, did she?

Page 38222

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Page 38223

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. And what was that?

3 A. That was on the 17th of March, 1999, at 1300 hours. Or perhaps an

4 hour earlier, I'm not quite sure there.

5 Q. Did you attend that press conference?

6 A. None of us attended the press conference. We were prohibited from

7 attending the press conference.

8 Q. So you didn't attend because you were prohibited from attending

9 the press conference, not for any other reason?

10 A. Yes, only for that reason. We were not allowed to attend the

11 press conference.

12 Q. Were you given any reasons why you were prohibited from attending?

13 A. No reasons were provided. It says here that there was an embargo

14 on the 17th of March, 1999, at 1300 hours, on the report itself.

15 Q. Very well. Now, that report she presented on the 17th of March,

16 1999, at 1300 hours, and we'll find that in tab 11. Otherwise, this same

17 tab, tab 11, is Exhibit C1. It is a Court exhibit. Tab 3, it was.

18 JUDGE KWON: It is annex to the witness statement of Dr. Ranta. I

19 have with me the English version.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. Very well. Now, Professor Dobricanin, you have the Serbian

22 version of this report by the forensic team in Racak in tab 11. Can you

23 comment on this report by the European Union expert team in Racak?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Would you do so, please. May we have your comments.

Page 38224

1 A. The title itself, it is a report of the Forensic Expert Team of

2 the European Union on events in Racak, and then in paragraph 1 they say:

3 "The said comments represent the personal opinion of the authors of the

4 report and must not be interpreted in any other way which would allow it

5 to be understood that it was an official report in the name of the

6 Department of Forensic Medicine of the University in Helsinki or the

7 expert team of the European Union." So this must be understood as

8 personal, a personal opinion on the part of Dr. Helena Ranta, because

9 that's what she says herself.

10 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note that they do not have the

11 text in English.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The whole report --

13 JUDGE KWON: It is on the ELMO, so find out the relevant passage.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Are the interpreters in a position --

15 THE INTERPRETER: Yes, thank you, Your Honour.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Continue. And perhaps you'd just tell us, since

17 you have been asked to comment on it, which is very general,

18 Mr. Milosevic, I'd much rather have specific questions, but if you are

19 going to comment on it, just let us know what particular paragraph and

20 what page, for the benefit of the interpreters.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have in front of me the Serbian

22 version. I don't have the English version before me. But in the Serbian

23 version --

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. It's at the very beginning, the first paragraph.

Page 38225

1 A. Well, that is the title of the document, and you referred to the

2 first paragraph.

3 Q. The first paragraph, yes. The EU Forensic Expert Team, et cetera,

4 et cetera, and at the end of the first paragraph we have the following

5 sentence: "The comments represent the personal view of the author,

6 Dr. Helena Ranta, and should not in any manner be construed as an

7 authorised communication on behalf of the Department of Forensic Medicine,

8 University of Helsinki, or the EU Forensic Expert Team."

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I continue, Your Honours?

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the last paragraph of the Serbian

12 version, third line from the bottom, it says the following: "There was no

13 possibility for carrying an on-site investigation at the actual location

14 for which it was -- which it is assumed that the crime took place which

15 could give significant additional information linked to the manner in

16 which the victims lost their lives."

17 And that is something that I fully endorse and support, and that

18 is what I said myself, that it was absolutely necessary to secure the

19 site, for the scene of crime to be secured and to start out with the

20 position of the bodies to see the position in which they lay, and that is

21 the most important thing that you have to do, to get there straight away

22 for forensic investigation and for any other investigation into the death

23 of one or more persons.

24 I'm not going to comment on the other portions of her report. I'd

25 just like to refer to her conclusion, or one of her conclusions on page 5,

Page 38226

1 in actual fact, of the Serbian text. It is the second paragraph. It

2 says: "Previously, the paraffin test was traditionally used to analyse

3 the remains of gunshot residue (GSR)." That is not true. The residue of

4 gunshot -- gunshot residue includes many other elements. So the paraffin

5 test is just used to establish the presence of nitrates in the residues of

6 gunshot or gunpowder explosions. This test is not specific enough. The

7 test lacks specificity. However, at the Interpol meeting in 1968 it was

8 officially stated that it no longer should be used. It might have been

9 recommended, but what other alternative was there? I don't know whether

10 they gave any other alternative. Then she goes on to say the scanning

11 electron microscope, with an energy dispersive X-ray analyser, SEM-EDX, is

12 used to determine the metal component and not the other particles, and

13 then she says with respect to cooperation, that it was good cooperation.

14 She calls us or refers to us as "local" pathologists. That is rather

15 pejorative. And on another page she says that I allowed television crews

16 -- you'll find that on page 6, paragraph 2 -- to enter into the premises

17 and to take photographs of what they needed. I did not allow that. I

18 gave no such permission, but from the media centre on probably in

19 agreement with the observers, I really don't know, I was informed that a

20 CNN television crew, not a Yugoslav television crew but a CNN television

21 crew, was arriving which had been given permission to film the mood around

22 and not at the institute itself, the work itself, but they did turn up and

23 they stayed there for ten or maybe less minutes and then left.

24 So that was the only team that entered the Institute for Forensic

25 Medicine, and those images by that team have been put on the Internet, and

Page 38227

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Page 38228

1 there's a man holding an X-ray picture up that can be seen on that

2 footage, and so on. No corpses were shown on it at all.

3 So that -- bearing in mind the complex nature of the

4 investigation, the Finnish experts are of the opinion that nothing would

5 have been achieved by unnecessarily speeding up the process. The team

6 included itself in the work, et cetera, et cetera.

7 So whenever you're dealing with serious problems of this kind in

8 Kosovo, and Kosovo is a part of Serbia and the Balkans where many events

9 came to pass, many things happened, it is extremely important to obtain

10 speedy preliminary results which in certain cases represent final results

11 as well. If you think along those lines at that time and given that part

12 of the territory, to think along those lines was not allowed because there

13 was great threat that loomed -- loomed above the Albanians and the Serbs.

14 I don't want to separate the people, they all suffered a great deal in

15 that war, so I don't want to distinguish between the two. There was a

16 great unfortune, great misfortune, and there was an even greater one in

17 the form of the invasion and bombardment of the territory.

18 So what we had to do was establish the truth so the truth could be

19 an element as to whether sanctions should be taken or whether they should

20 be given up.

21 We as pathologists or forensic experts from the state of Serbia

22 considered that we had to work speedily, and there was no professional

23 reason that -- to prevent us from going ahead, because on the 28th in the

24 evening, we had our own conclusions ready and the preliminary conclusions

25 by our colleagues which they wanted to sign, then they didn't want to sign

Page 38229

1 - once again I don't want to enter into the reasons for that - but

2 Mrs. Helena Ranta states that histological, toxicological DNA analysis

3 should have been done in Helsinki. In forensic medicine you never carry

4 out histological toxicological and DNA analysis in cases where you have

5 known corpses. These were corpses which were identified in the course of

6 our work. So they were identified bodies which means that no additional

7 histological, toxicological or DNA analysis was necessary. You undertake

8 histological and toxicological analyses if you suspect that there has been

9 poisoning. Here there was never any suspicion of people being drugged or

10 poisoned. Therefore, these reasons that were stipulated for delaying a

11 final report are absolute -- absolutely do not hold water.

12 I agree that many photographs were taken. They took more than

13 3.000 photographs and ten hours of video footage, and our crime -- scene

14 of crime officers took 18.000 photographs, several hundred videotapes.

15 Unfortunately, the videotapes and part of the photographs that were taken

16 have been lost for all time, and even the report by the Finnish team which

17 belonged to Mrs. Marinkovic, her copy was also destroyed in the bombing of

18 the district SUP in 1999. It seemed that somebody made haste to destroy

19 them as soon as possible.

20 Now, I don't wish to comment any further on the findings. I would

21 just like to give my own conclusion, if I may.

22 Mrs. Helena Ranta was refuted by doctors, specialists in forensic

23 medicine, distinguished professors from the Finnish team itself who were

24 -- who absolutely agreed or were in correlation with our findings. Her

25 personal opinion is her own personal opinion. She is a forensic

Page 38230

1 odontologist and she allowed herself to say that it was a case of unarmed

2 peasants.

3 I have finished, Your Honours, to say what I wanted to. Thank

4 you.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Time to finish the narrative. Next question,

6 Mr. Milosevic.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Professor Dobricanin, can we briefly summarise by saying that your

9 views differ from those of Mrs. Ranta and their views -- or her views also

10 differ from the views of her colleagues as expressed in various articles

11 in FAC magazine, for instance?

12 A. It is absolutely correct.

13 MR. SAXON: We don't have these articles in front of us. We'd

14 like to know which articles and where they are.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, the first part of the question, I think

16 he's able to answer, that his views differ from those of Mrs. Ranta. As

17 to whether her views also differ from the views of her colleagues

18 expressed in various articles, Mr. Milosevic, those articles are not here.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I understood that it is given

20 in tab 2 and 3, actually.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. I don't know if you have it in front of you, Mr. Dobricanin.

23 A. Yes, I do.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: What specific views of her colleagues were you

25 referring to which differ from hers?

Page 38231

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, as far as I was able to see

2 from what is written here, this confirms that all findings and all

3 professional views were identical between Yugoslav, Finnish, and

4 Belorussian experts, that there were no differences whatsoever, because

5 the fact that the Finnish experts did not sign that first report can be

6 construed as meaning that some difference was later established to account

7 for their reservations. However, it was later established that there was

8 no difference at all and that the findings were absolutely identical. And

9 the professor indeed confirmed that the findings were identical on all 40

10 bodies. It even says here in particular --

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Which is it in, either of tab 2 or tab 3, that is

12 said specifically that Helena Ranta has contradicted?

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, what the professor just quoted

14 puts a question mark over a number of her observations which do not

15 coincide at all with the views published by members of her own team.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: I am afraid that statement is meaningless to me. I

17 need to know what it is in either tab 2 or 3, that's stated in tab 2 or 3

18 that she has since refuted in some way.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, none of them writes explicitly

20 that the views of Helena Ranta are incorrect. It is by comparing their

21 views as expressed with the views expressed by Helena Ranta that we can

22 see there is a difference. I never said that they wrote that her views

23 were inaccurate. They certainly didn't.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ...

25 Mr. Milosevic to the witness that Helena Ranta's views differed from the

Page 38232

1 professor's, and the Finnish team were in agreement with the professor's

2 views.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Is that so, Professor?

5 A. Yes, that is so.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you Mr. Robinson.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Professor Dobricanin, you subsequently wrote your own article

9 about your experience from Racak. What is it that you have written? We

10 have under tab 12 an article that is entitled "Racak Case, Forensic

11 Medicine." We have an abstract, both in English and Serbian, written by

12 S. Dobricanin, S. Matejic, M. Milosevic, and V. Jaksic.

13 A. This article has been read out to all forensic doctors in Serbia

14 in Niskabanja [phoen] at a workshop sponsored by the Association of

15 Forensic Medicine of Yugoslavia. It has been published in the magazine of

16 our association. I cannot give you the exact date.

17 The article refers to the comprehensive forensic view of our work

18 at the institute, and it is an indication of something. It is an appeal

19 of sorts. It says: "Racak case - forensic medicine in service of

20 policy." Forensic medicine certainly should not be in the service of any

21 country, any administration, any police or other agency, and all of us

22 experts from our country, from Belorussia, from Finland, absolutely agreed

23 about that.

24 Helena Ranta is quoted in the article, in the part where she says

25 that the victims were probably unarmed peasants as indicated by forensic

Page 38233

1 findings. That is not our task. It is certainly not the task of somebody

2 who specialises in only one branch of forensic medicine, namely

3 odontology, to speak about findings that relate to identification or to

4 raise matters about possible poisoning or the necessity for toxicological

5 or other reports, et cetera. She can certainly not speak for all members

6 of the team, nor has she at her disposal all the elements of the forensic

7 examination. And even in this article published in the Forensic Science

8 International magazine, she has not signed as one of the authors.

9 She was a member of the team, and she was competent in her

10 particular field of specialisation, just like everybody else.

11 This is an article that was designed to explain to the

12 international public and primarily to our own doctors what exactly was

13 found on our -- on those bodies and what was the result, and we wrote in

14 our conclusion that there was no need for politicians to be involved at

15 all and that the establishment of -- a team for only -- from only one

16 country cannot be the best way to handle this case.

17 THE INTERPRETER: Could the professor please repeat the last

18 sentence.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor, the interpreters are asking you to

20 repeat the last sentence.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I will. I will, Your Honour.

22 We drew the attention of the readership that the involvement of

23 politics in forensic work can sometimes lead to what happened to us in

24 Racak; namely, that the Racak case became eventually the trigger for the

25 bombing of Serbia.

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Page 38235

1 JUDGE KWON: Before going further, I find this article identical

2 with the one we had already exhibited, which is D2, being the Praxis

3 Medica, which has been published in 2001, while the index of this says

4 that it is published on 29th of September, 2000, and it is published by

5 Forensic Medicine Service. Maybe the date of 29 of September is the date

6 when the conference was held.

7 Am I correct, Doctor?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You are right, Judge Kwon. This was

9 read on the 29th of September before the section for forensic medicine of

10 Serbia and the Association for Forensic Medicine of Yugoslavia. This

11 article was published in Praxis Medica, which is a specialised magazine of

12 the medical school of the university in Pristina. It has been read. It

13 cannot be published in two different magazines. It was published only in

14 our expert magazine called Praxis Medica.

15 JUDGE KWON: So what we have in front of us is just rewriting of

16 that article in both languages.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As it was published and printed in

18 that magazine and as it was read out at the workshop. This is the

19 original, in fact the photocopy of the article.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

21 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I simply notice the time and I have about

22 45 seconds or a minute of procedural matters to raise. I thought I'd

23 mention it now.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I take it that you have concluded

25 your examination or do you have more of this witness? Because we're about

Page 38236

1 to adjourn.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just a few more questions. I have

3 just a few more questions and I will be very brief.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: We can't continue beyond a quarter to.

5 JUDGE KWON: I also have to make a correction. D2 has been marked

6 for identification.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: So I'll allow Mr. Nice to make -- to raise his

8 point and then you will have to continue next week.

9 MR. NICE: Your Honour, what I say is not just for the Court's

10 assistance but also that the accused might listen to it and attend,

11 because the evidence that this witness has now given, despite all the

12 warnings, for example more recently in Gojovic about compliance with the

13 orders, despite all those warnings this is plainly straightforward expert

14 evidence that is being given, and a considerable quantity of it on a

15 material issue. We will do our best to be able to deal with this next

16 week. If we're able to, it will no doubt be at the inconvenience of

17 others who put the service of the Tribunal high on their list of

18 priorities, but I can't guarantee it. Thus the accused may want to know

19 that he may come on Tuesday and find that our application is to adjourn,

20 whether to Wednesday or Thursday or another week. I hope it won't happen.

21 I think it will not be necessary, but I certainly must allow for that

22 possibility.

23 Your Honour, the second point arising from the same general

24 consideration is this: There's been reference to the interposing of the

25 witness Jasovic. The understanding of my learned friends the assigned

Page 38237

1 counsel, and it maybe the accused, is that the Court has given permission

2 for that witness to be called, query when. The application to call the

3 witness hadn't been made and I am likely both to resist the application to

4 call that witness, and even if leave is given to call him, then I may have

5 to seek an adjournment. Again, if leave is given I shall do everything I

6 can to deal with him immediately. It may be necessary for me to seek an

7 adjournment in respect of him. Accordingly, the accused should know that

8 there is a possibility that on Tuesday there will be an application to

9 adjourn and that he will need another witness if his time is not to be

10 wasted. And in view of the fact that all the procedural problems we are

11 facing are caused by his failure adequately to deal with orders of this

12 Court, if time is wasted I would ask that he be warned that it will count

13 as his time and will not be counted against anybody else.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, those points are fair. Have

15 another witness on stand-by for Tuesday, for Tuesday morning, in the event

16 that an application is made for an adjournment and in the event that the

17 application is granted.

18 We will adjourn now until --

19 MR. NICE: Mr. Saxon has been asking me several times to remind

20 the Court to admonish witnesses about non-communication. I think it's

21 something that has been overlooked occasionally recently and it's my error

22 not to have picked it up and then dealt with it with it when I have been

23 reminded of it myself.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. It is a warning that was given consistently

25 during the Prosecution case.

Page 38238

1 Professor, we are going to adjourn. During the break you are not

2 to discuss your evidence with anybody, and that includes the accused.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In relation to this comment by

6 Mr. Nice, I hope everybody here understands perfectly clearly that it is

7 actually Mr. Nice who initiated the calling of Mr. Jasovic. He was the

8 one who indicated his presence in The Hague, and you just approved that I

9 may call him and prepare him from -- for testifying the next day. So it

10 was really not in my hands. I had absolutely no clue that he would be

11 appearing.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: I don't want to continue this. We'll adjourn and

13 we will deal with these matters next week, Tuesday.

14 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.48 p.m.,

15 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 12th day of

16 April, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.

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